After Daronte Jones left the Vikings to become LSU's defensive coordinator last month, the team appears to be set to replace him with another coach from the SEC.

According to multiple reports, the Vikings are set to hire Alabama defensive backs coach Karl Scott to replace Jones. The Birmingham News first reported the move.

Scott has worked at Alabama since 2018, burnishing his reputation as a strong recruiter while molding a secondary that included second-round picks Trevon Diggs and Xavier McKinney, as well as cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who's expected to be a first-round pick this spring.

His time working for Nick Saban and teaching Alabama's pattern-matching scheme to young corners should aid his transition to his first NFL job working for Mike Zimmer, another defensive taskmaster who employs plenty of pattern-matching concepts in his coverage schemes. The Vikings praised Jones for the work he did with a young secondary through a virtual offseason last year; Scott could step into the NFL under similar constraints this year with the league's offseason program possibly remaining in a virtual format.

Scott had worked at Texas Tech before becoming the defensive coordinator at Louisiana-Lafayette in December 2017; he left that job weeks later, once he was offered the defensive backs coach job at Alabama.