Dooley’s Dozen: 12 things to know about Charlotte 49ers football
The Gator Nation is still making a lot of noise about last Saturday’s win over Tennessee.
Those who have their voices back, that is.
But Billy Napier is aware of how Florida could not handle prosperity last year. Beat Utah, then lose to Kentucky at home. Beat the tar out of South Carolina, lose to Vandy.
He understands that part of his job this week is to make the players understand how to deal with praise and adulation that wasn’t there a week ago.
The good news is that Florida is back at home where the fans want to cuddle with this team. And they are facing a team that is a 28-point underdog.
The Dooley’s Dozen brings you 12 things you need to know about Charlotte, the program, not the city.
It’s the Mike Hill game
At least that is what people who know the Charlotte athletic director are calling it. Hill was an associate AD at Florida for two decades before landing the job in Charlotte in 2019.
“One of the first things I did was look at the schedule and see if we could play Florida,” he said. “If we were going to play one big opponent a season, I wanted to go to a football cathedral.”
Now he’s getting paid
Hill joked about this on WRUF’s Tailgate show, but Charlotte will receive $1.55 million for this game.
“At Florida, we wrote the checks and now we accept the checks,” he said. These kinds of paydays have helped Charlotte become a player in spring sports.
Why the 49ers?
Ok, well, gold was first discovered in the United States near the city. But that’s not why. The school is located on Highway 49. But that’s not why. In 1949, educator Bonnie Cone convinced the legislature that Charlotte needed a school. Hence, the 49ers.
Their coach is different
His name is Francis Xavier Poggi and he’s better known as Biff. Biff Poggi wears sleeveless workout shirts and gym shorts to games. He is 63 years old and this is his first college head coaching job after spending most of his time as an investment banker or a high school coach.
But he was Jim Harbaugh’s consigliere (associate head coach) at Michigan and is given a lot of credit for the turnaround there.
Charlotte is more like Colorado than UF
While everyone dips into the transfer portal, Poggi took the Deion approach and loaded up. He has more than 60 players on his team from the portal and 40 players left the team. One of the players who transferred in – wide receiver Jack Hestera – played at Colorado the previous two years and is Charlotte’s leading receiver.
And here’s a familiar name
Remember all the drama around Jalen Jones in the summer of 2019? He was accused of sexual assault twice in 30 minutes (although no charges were pressed) and was encouraged by UF to enter the portal (there were other issues). Jones was a four-star quarterback and is now the quarterback at Charlotte.
Where he shares time
Jones left Florida and went to Jackson State, then Mississippi Community College, then Bethune-Cookman. Now at Charlotte, he splits time with Trexler Ivey, the more accurate passer of the two. Jones is a better runner and leads the team in rushing with 196 yards.
It hasn’t gone great so far
In Poggi’s first season, his team has beaten South Carolina State but lost to Maryland and Georgia State by a combined 79-45. The 1-2 start prompted Poggi to say after meeting with his coaches this week, “We’re going to get it done the way I want it done or else I’m not going to be here or they’re not.”
The stats don’t lie
There are some good things about what Charlotte is doing. The Niners average 144 rushing yards a game. But they are also 108th in the country in total defense and 100th in total offense. So, you get his anger. The 49ers are also 9 of 37 on third-down conversions.
They have some ballers
Napier talked this week about Charlotte looking better on film than the record indicates. There are some studs and one of them is Eyabi Okie-Anoma. You may remember him as an Alabama signee and Michigan player (and UT-Martin). He followed Poggi to Charlotte and has 2.5 tackles for loss.
The revolving door
Seriously, you probably had to check to see which conference Charlotte is in because of the crazy landscape of college football realignment. The 49ers managed to sneak into the American Athletic Conference after spending nine years in the Sun Belt Conference after one season as an independent.
The history is pretty sparse
The 49ers spent three years trying football in the 1940s and then gave it up. But the students kept pushing for it and agreed to pay increased student fees to get football. Charlotte (also known in the old days as UNC-Charlotte) has a record of 30-64 since restarting the program in 2013 and has been to only one bowl game ever.
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