After college, Austin was selected in the 12th round of the 1986 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. He played a single season in the NFL as the team's third-string quarterback, attempting a single pass. In 1987, the Cardinals chose not to resign Austin, and he instead jumped to the CFL and joined the Roughriders, initially as their back-up quarterback. On November 26, 1989 in Toronto, Austin was at the helm of the Roughriders when they won the 1989 Grey Cup versus the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, winning the MVP trophy for his 474 yards passing in the game. One of the Top 10 quarterbacks in CFL history, with 36,030 career passing yards on 4,700 pass attempts, having completed 2709 passes, Austin is a Roughriders legend for leading the team to its second league championship. He also threw 198 touchdown passes and 191 interceptions in his 10 CFL seasons with four teams. Austin started at quarterback for the Roughriders, British Columbia Lions, and Toronto Argonauts, as well as serving as a backup for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He is one of only four CFL quarterbacks to pass for more than 6,000 yards in a single season. Austin won his second Grey Cup in 1994 with the British Columbia Lions, starting the 82nd Grey Cup but being replaced at halftime by Danny McManus due to an injury. McManus would lead the Lions to a win on a last-second field goal. In the Columbo episode "A Bird in the Hand...", footage from a Saskatchewan Roughriders versus Edmonton Eskimos game was used to portray a fictional game played by a football team called "The Stallions". As the footage showed Kent Austin playing and wearing the No. 5 jersey, the actor playing the quarterback wore a jersey bearing that number throughout the television episode. When a scene required seeing the quarterback in play, they used footage of Kent Austin.
In 2003, Austin entered coaching as the quarterbacks coach of the Ottawa Renegades of the Canadian Football League. The following year, he was hired as Toronto offensive coordinator, helping lead the team to an offensive surge that allowed the franchise to win the 2004 Grey Cup. He was fired in the 2006 season and later hired as Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach for the 2007 season. On November 25, 2007, Austin coached the Saskatchewan Roughriders to the 95th Grey Cup Championship beating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23–19. In doing so, Austin became the first head coach to win a professional football championship for the same team with which he won the championship as a quarterback. He did so in his first year as head coach, and at the same stadium where he won the cup as a player, 18 years earlier. His performance as head coach won him the 2007 Annis Stukus Trophy as CFL coach of the year. On January 16, 2008, Austin accepted the job as Offensive coordinator at the University of Mississippi, his alma mater, to serve under head coach Houston Nutt. In 2008 Austin's offense ranked 28th nationally scoring 32 points a game up from 20 points a game in 2007. On January 26, 2010 Austin accepted the head coaching job at Cornell University replacing Jim Knowles who left Cornell to become the defensive coordinator for David Cutcliffe at Duke University. On December 17, 2012, Austin signed on as the head coach, general manager and Vice President of Football Operations of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL. He led the Tiger-Cats to consecutive Grey Cup appearances in his first two years as head coach. On March 11, 2016, he appointed Eric Tillman to replace his as general manager. On August 24, 2017, Austin stepped down as head coach and appointed June Jones as his replacement. On April 12, 2018, Austin stepped down as Vice President of Football Operations of the Tiger-Cats and became a consultant for the team.
Head coaching record
CFL
College
Family
Austin and his wife Shelley have three children; two daughters and a son.
