Head Coach: Tim Albin is entering his 1st year as the head coach of the 49ers. He comes over after spending the last 20 years as Ohio. Most of that was as Frank Solich’s right hand man, but Albin took over after Solich retired and led the Bobcats to a 33-19 record, including 2 bowl wins and the first MAC championship the program had since 1968. Make no mistake, Charlotte got a major coup when they plucked him from Ohio.
Program Outlook: Charlotte is an extremely new program on the College Football landscape still. Charlotte moved extremely fast with the opening too, they already had a FBS conference lined up and only played at the FCS level for 2 years as they started the program up. They only have one bowl appearance in program history and essentially every selling point on them has been on the potential the program has. They have a strong investment and are the only College Football presence in Charlotte, this program can be really good once it starts winning.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: This is going to take time, previous head coach Biff Poggi went extremely heavy on transfers and that leaves Charlotte 128th in the country returning 33.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. The cupboard isn’t completely bare RB Don Chaney Jr showed some ability with the Miami Hurricanes but transferred to Louisville only for 2 stud backs to emerge and bury him on the depth chart. TE Jake Young from Western Carolina is intriguing and returning center Jonny King will anchor the oline. The defense is also highlighted by some really fascinating FCS transfers, former Dartmouth DE Braden Mullen, former Bucknell outside linebacker Gavin Willis and former Elon safety Caleb Curtain. LB Reid Williford led the team in tackled last year, he’s back as well. It will be important for some of the transfers for Charlotte to gell, they’ll have a QB competition between former UNC QB Conner Harrell and former Duke QB Grayson Loftis, Harrell started for UNC in the 2023 Duke’s Mayo Bowl and ironically a game against Charlotte last season, Loftis did ok filling in for Riley Leonard when he was hurt in 2023. Charlotte will be transfer heavy at receiver and the Oline as well.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Charlotte managed to go 5-7 last year thanks to a favorable schedule, this year’s schedule is the opposite of that. They have some cool but challenging in-state non-conference games against Appalachian State and UNC, plus they get sacrificed to Georgia late. Don’t overlook their FCS foe Monmouth either, the Hawks took down FIU last year and are expected to be even better in 2025 behind a high flying offense, Charlotte is in legitimate danger here. Their conference draw is brutal, of the 7 teams expected to be in the top tier of the conference, Charlotte draws 6 of them. Charlotte could have a better team compared to last year and only win 2 games, this schedule does not play to their favor and there are no guaranteed wins.
Final Thoughts: Tim Albin was such a huge move by the 49ers, hiring a proven winning sitting head coach at the FBS level is something they haven’t been able to do until now. There’s lots of reasons to be excited for the future, even if it doesn’t quite show in 2025. Between the brutal schedule and roster reset I don’t see a bowl game, and really any win will be a positive for the 49ers against this schedule.
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