Coastal Carolina isn’t a full 10 days into its football coaching search to replace the fired Tim Beck, but the Chanticleers’ process is gaining some clarity, sources tell FootballScoop.<\/p>\n
In addition to keeping interim coach Jeremiah Johnson under consideration for the full-time post as Johnson leads Coastal Carolina into its appearance in the Independence Bowl opposite Louisiana Tech, Coastal officials also have cast a wide net across football — and multiple divisions of college football, sources tell FootballScoop.<\/p>\n
Early on Missouri State head coach Ryan Beard and Broyles Award nominee, Navy offensive coordinator Drew Cronic, a former Broyles Award winner, a back-to-back FCS Playoffs coach who just delivered his program’s best season in 25 years and Mercer head coach Mike Jacobs all were asked to interview.<\/p>\n
Clemson offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, the 2022 Broyles Award winner and long considered a future Football Bowls Subdivision head coach, has entered the picture at Coastal Carolina, with multiple sources telling FootballScoop that Riley and Coastal’s delegation have spoken about the job.<\/p>\n
Two additional sources told FootballScoop on Monday, “He (Riley) is deep in it” at Coastal Carolina.<\/p>\n
But Lehigh head coach Kevin Cahill is another consistently popping up in coaching circles as it pertains to Coastal’s search. Cahill just led the Mountain Hawks to a 12-win 2025 season — their most in 25 years — and a second-straight, second-round appearance in the Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs.<\/p>\n
While Cahill only has coached once in the Southeast, at UT-Martin, he had a decade-long run as a top assistant at Ivy League program Yale.<\/p>\n
Jacobs has emerged as one of the fastest-rising coaches in college football in recent years. After taking NCAA Division II program Lenoir-Rhyne to the D-II semifinals in 2023, capping a sprint of 29 wins in three seasons, he’s now led Mercer to consecutive Southern Conference championships and back-to-back FCS Playoffs trips to the quarterfinals and second round, respectively.<\/p>\n
Jacobs also was a candidate in UAB’s coaching search that culminated last week when interim leader Alex Mortensen landed the full-time post.<\/p>\n
Beard helped Missouri State successfully navigate the FCS-to-FBS transition the past two years as he amassed 15 total wins.<\/p>\n
This year’s Missouri State squad, despite it being the first season at college football’s top level and featuring a gauntlet schedule that included an opening road-trip to Big Ten resident USC, closed the regular season with an 7-5 mark and earned a bid to the XBox Bowl.<\/p>\n
Cronic also was heavily pursued by UAB in its quest to replace the fired Trent Dilfer; multiple sources told FootballScoop on Nov. 29 that Cronic had withdraw his consideration for the position and elected not to accept UAB’s offer to become the program’s next head coach.<\/p>\n
This one is expected to come to a decision soon. Stay tuned.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coastal Carolina isn’t a full 10 days into its football coaching search to replace the fired Tim Beck,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":435189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[95028,201599,1322,1318,201598,95046,1317,1315,1316,50,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-435188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-coastal-carolina","9":"tag-coastal-carolina-coaching-search","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-garrett-riley","13":"tag-kevin-cahill","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-football","16":"tag-ncaafootball","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115688662117666612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}