Head Coach: Biff Poggi is entering his 2nd season as the head coach of the Charlotte 49ers with a 3-9 record. He’s a one of a kind personality who never wears sleeves and he’s developed a following as a result. His path is unorthodox too, he spent most of his career as a high school coach in Maryland before becoming an advisor on Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan staff. He’s reason alone to tune into Charlotte football.
Program Outlook: Charlotte’s position is interesting. There’s a lot of FBS programs in North Carolina but the 4 ACC programs all reside within the Raleigh/Durham area, East Carolina and App State are in completely different parts of the state leaving Charlotte as the only team that’s actually in the biggest city in the state. It’s a young program with lots of potential, but it’s been waiting for someone to tap into that potential.
How does the 2024 Roster look?: Charlotte struggled massively during their 3-9 season last year. It was so bad that during a halftime interview of a late season game Biff Poggi said watching his team was like “watching sausage being made” needless to say a theme you’ll notice is he revamped a lot of the roster with transfers. That starts at QB where Max Brown, a transfer from Florida is expected to take over as the starter. Brown has a little bit of playing experience most notably a solid performance against Florida State’s loaded defense but not much else and he is mobile. If College Football 25 is any indication Brown’s about to tear it up and bring the 49ers to power. Brown is just part of the theme pretty much the entire offense is being remade via the portal, RB Cartevious Norton from Iowa State is a huge pickup, and by name alone O’Mega Blake is an exciting addition to the receiving corp, although MTSU grad transfer Justin Olson will also play a big part. The offensive line, you guessed, it will be remade from the portal with only one starter back and a lot of power conference transfers expected to step in. Don’t blame the defense for Charlotte’s struggles they scraped and clawed to keep the 49ers in games and even stepped up against some of the tougher offenses they played. That’s not to say you still won’t see transfers all over, there are several but the transfers on this side of the ball were brought in to fill a specific need like Dre Butler (Michigan State) and Dre Martin (South Carolina) who were brought in to help stop the run. Them along with the guys they already have led by Demon Clowney (if that last name is familiar it’s because he’s Jadeveon’s cousin) will help clear the lanes from a good group of linebackers to get to work. The secondary only has a couple holdovers and is otherwise remade with a ton of transfers who will be part of what they hope is a deep rotation.
Screenshot from fbschedules.com1
2024 Schedule Thoughts: This is a schedule that will make it tough to show progress on the win column. Their non-conference schedule is packed with challenges. They host JMU then travel to face North Carolina and Indiana. Fortunately their FCS foe the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs had a coaching change and are likely to take a step back. The conference schedule is rough also, they play 3 of the top 4 conference title contenders and have road games at a couple potentially rising programs. They’ll need this revamped roster to take a huge step forward to make a bowl.
Vegas Projection: Charlotte’s win total is set at 3.5 with the odds geared toward the over. There’s a lot of changes to the roster but Vegas only sees a slight improvement coming, likely due to the schedule.
2024 Best Case: College Football 25 is ahead of all of us on this, but the transfers come together and this team is primed for the playoff. Charlotte rolls to an 11-1 regular season record before winning the conference title and earning that playoff spot. The 49ers even win a game while they are there. We are all left to wonder if the video game will tip us off to more playoff sleepers in the future.
2024 Worst Case: Maybe this isn’t ready to come together yet. The offense gets no better and the defense regresses. It’s clear things aren’t going well when Charlotte loses 31-0 to JMU in the opener and it doesn’t get much better against North Carolina. Charlotte barely edges past Gardner-Webb but that’s the last highlight of the season as the 49ers lose out. As much fun as Biff Poggi is, fans are left to wonder if this will ever work out.
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