The 53-year-old has been a high school football coach since 2013, winning 131 games and three state championships during that span.
The first two state titles came at
Pinson Valley (Pinson, Ala.) in 2017 and 2018 with his son Bo Nix leading the offense. Bo piled up over 12,000 total yards and 161 touchdowns over his four-year high school career at quarterback.
The elder Nix has coached Tez Johnson, Kool-Aid McKinstry, Cam Coleman, A.J. Harris and T.J. Parker among others.
Patrick got his head coaching start at
Scottsboro (Ala.) in 2013 where he won 28 games in four years. The Wildcats had gone 6-34 in the four years before Patrick arrived.
In 2017 he left for Pinson Valley, where he won the two state titles and went 38-4 over three years. Then in 2020, he took the prized Central job. Playing against the best teams in Alabama and the region, Patrick went 65-14 during his tenure. In 2023 the team won the state championship and finished ranked No. 25 in the MaxPreps Top 25.
Patrick is the son of a coach, Conrad Nix. Conrad was a head coach in Alabama and Georgia for 35 years and won 299 games and multiple state titles. Patrick played his high school ball at
Etowah (Attalla, Ala.) and Conrad was his offensive coordinator.
Together they won 29 games, five of which were in the postseason between 1988-90. Patrick threw for 5,215 yards over that span and was ranked as the No. 8 run-pass quarterback in the nation according to Tom Lemming before heading to Auburn.
In 1994 Patrick outdueled future Heisman winner Danny Wuerffel by throwing a game-winning touchdown to take down No. 1 Florida on the road in front of 85,562 fans.
Patrick was a two-year starter at Auburn and threw for 4,957 yards and 31 touchdowns in his career.
He then coached collegiately from 1996-2012 with stops at Jacksonville State, Henderson State, Samford, Georgia Tech, Miami and Charleston Southern. At Georgia Tech he coached future Pro Football Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson as offensive coordinator.
Patrick left the college ranks after the 2012 season to start coaching in high school where he coached his sons Caleb and Bo. Caleb plays at Jacksonville State and had 59 tackles with four picks in 2025 after transferring from Clemson.
Bo played quarterback at Auburn and Oregon before becoming a first-round pick of the Broncos in 2024. In just his second season, he is getting ready for the playoffs as Denver is the No. 1 seed in the AFC for the first time since 2015 with Peyton Manning.
