CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte 49ers fired their former boy wonder head coach Sunday, adding to a remarkably bad year among prominent head coaches in Charlotte.
Will Healy’s fourth Charlotte team had started 1-7 and is widely considered one of the worst squads in college football this season. So his dismissal wasn’t an enormous surprise. And in this city, in 2022, it’s even less of a shock given the way this year has gone.
In the past six months, Healy is the fourth well-known head coach to get a pink slip in Charlotte, joining James Borrego (Charlotte Hornets, in April), Miguel Angel Ramirez (Charlotte FC, in May) and Matt Rhule (Carolina Panthers, in October). It’s been a seismic change at the top of the city’s sports scene, especially when you include Davidson basketball coach Bob McKillop, who retired on his own terms this summer but was a legend at that school for 33 years.
Said 49ers athletic director Mike Hill in his statement announcing Healy’s firing: “We are grateful to Will Healy for the incredible energy and enthusiasm he brought to our program. He made an impact here that will never be forgotten. Sadly, however, our on-field results have not met expectations.”
Healy said as part of his own statement: “I want to thank the students, boosters and fan base for the support they’ve shown over the years, and I apologize for not being able to bring the results that we were striving for. I’m really proud of the young men in our locker room. I’m a 49ers fan for life and I know the future of this university is bright.”
Well, that might be a stretch.
Charlotte’s future as a university is bright for sure. Have you been on campus lately? There’s a new building everywhere you look. But the future of the football program itself? That’s cloudy.
Apathy surrounds Charlotte football
Charlotte’s football program has been around since 2013, started under previous AD Judy Rose, and has had only one winning season in 10 years.
The 49ers’ incoming recruiting classes don’t look good as a whole. The crowds are worse, even in a 15,000-seat stadium that’s tiny for the FBS level. The initial enthusiasm when the program began, and the renewed enthusiasm when Healy was hired and got Charlotte to its first and only bowl game in 2019, has been replaced by apathy.
And apathy is a coach-killer. I believe the twin reasons Healy was fired were these: he couldn’t win anymore, which meant the fans largely gave up on coming, and the spiral just kept heading down, down, down.
Only 33 when he was hired, Healy was one of the youngest head coaches in college football and was liked by pretty much everyone. He was charismatic and offensive-minded and got rumored for bigger head-coaching jobs for a couple of years.
“I feel like there are two different rumors that go on in November and December,” Healy said in December 2020 when fielding a question about open jobs. “There’s a rumor you’re getting fired, or there’s a rumor that you’re leaving for somewhere else.”
This year, though, the rumors started earlier than November, and they were all of the “getting fired” kind. Charlotte’s defense was atrocious, which has been a theme — the 49ers have lost games by the scores of 43-13, 56-21 and 56-20. They have given up at least 34 points in all eight games. Their high-water mark came in September 2021, when they played a fantastic game to beat Duke 31-28 at home for Charlotte’s first and still only win against a Power Five team, but the results have largely been awful since. The 49ers named offensive line coach Pete Rossomando as interim head coach Sunday.
Time to hire Mike Minter
So the 49ers are starting over, just like the Panthers are. And I have just the coach for them — Campbell head football coach Mike Minter.
Minter, the former starting safety for the Carolina Panthers, is no Johnny-come-lately to the rigors of coaching a team without the natural advantages of an Alabama or Ohio State. He has directed the Campbell Camels for 10 seasons, and at the beginning he had no scholarships to offer at all. Since then he has shepherded Campbell into the Big South, where the Camels have established a solid program after joining the conference in 2018.
Just as importantly, Minter can recruit — and Charlotte simply needs more good players, especially on defense. He’s got his own war stories of playing defense in a Super Bowl for the Panthers and starting for Carolina for 10 years. He’d give the 49ers a chance at the caliber of talent they need.
In the meantime, as the furor over “what’s next” begins among Charlotte 49er fans — at least the non-apathetic ones — spare a kind thought for Healy. He’s a good man who tried hard. His press conference Monday will undoubtedly be gracious.
Boy wonders always have to grow up at some point, and sometimes the transition is tough. Healy will likely become an offensive coordinator somewhere and then get another head-coaching job he will be better prepared for at some point down the line.
I don’t blame the 49ers for the decision, though. The 49ers were going nowhere fast. And if they want a real change of direction, they should hire Minter.
