Charlotte fires Will Healy after 49ers fall to 1-7

Associated PressOct 23, 2022, 3:06 PM EDT

Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte fired coach Will Healy after the 49ers fell to 1-7 in their final season as a member of Conference USA.

“We are grateful to Will Healy for the incredible energy and enthusiasm he brought to our program,” said Charlotte 49ers athletic director Mike Hill. “He made an impact here that will never be forgotten. Sadly, however, our on-field results have not met expectations. Will and his family are special people and we wish them the best.”

Healy, one of the youngest head coaches in major college football at 37, fell to 15-24 in four seasons at Charlotte after losing 34-15 to Florida International on Saturday. That dropped the 49ers into last place in C-USA.

Offensive line coach Pete Rossomando was elevated to interim head coach. Rossomando is in his second season with the 49ers. He has previous head coaching experience at New Haven and Central Connecticut State and was named the NCAA Div. II National Coach of the Year following the 2012 season at New Haven. He was a finalist for the Eddie Robinson FCS Coach of the Year Award in 2017 while at Central Connecticut State.

Charlotte is set to make a jump up in competition next season when it joins the American Athletic Conference along with five other C-USA schools.

Healy was the youngest head coach in FBS when he was hired by Charlotte in 2019 after three years at Austin Peay that included an FCS playoff appearance in 2017.

He led Charlotte to a bowl game in his first season, finishing 7-6. The 49ers are 8-18 since.

Healy is the sixth major college coach fired this season, but first outside the Power Five conferences.

The 49ers are at Rice nexy.

SEC pushes back Arkansas-Missouri, Tennessee-Vanderbilt

Associated PressNov 24, 2020, 9:31 PM EST

Arkansas Razorbacks, Missouri Tigers, Tennessee Volunteers, Vanderbilt Commodores, SEC, COVID-19

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Southeastern Conference has shuffled its schedule, pushing back the Arkansas-Missouri and Tennessee-Vanderbilt games that had been set for Saturday.

The league announced Monday that it has postponed the Arkansas-Missouri game because of a combination of positive tests, contact tracing and the resulting quarantining within the Arkansas program.

Vanderbilt and Missouri will now meet Saturday to make up a game that was postponed on Oct. 17.

The SEC is still trying to get in 10 games for all 14 teams, and last week reserved the right to revise the schedule up until 8 p.m. CT on Mondays.

No date has been set for Arkansas-Missouri or Tennessee-Vanderbilt, but Dec. 19 is a possibility for teams not playing in the league championship game.

“As we continue to adapt to the current realities, it’s important to remain flexible as we move forward in the final weeks of the season,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said. “Contact tracing continues to be the biggest contributing factor to game interruptions.

“We will continue to manage the remaining weeks of the football schedule to allow for as many games to be played as possible.”

Arkansas at Missouri is the sixth game scheduled for this weekend that has been postponed because of COVID-19 issues with one of the teams involved, including the Apple Cup between Washington and Washington State.

In Conference USA on Monday, Louisiana Tech at FIU was canceled and Western Kentucky at Charlotte was pushed back from Saturday to Dec. 1. That game will have an unusual 10:30 a.m. ET kickoff time on a Tuesday.

In the past two weeks, 33 games involving FBS teams have been postponed or canceled, about 27% of the schedule.

In the Big Ten, Minnesota announced it won’t practice on Tuesday, conducting all-virtual meetings instead because of presumptive COVID-19 positive tests within the program.

The Gophers are scheduled to play Saturday at Wisconsin, which has already had two games canceled due to the virus. The university said the team’s goal is to return to regular practice on Wednesday. Several Minnesota players were sidelined and three staff members were quarantined for last week’s game against Purdue.

Arizona-Utah canceled, Pac-12 down to 4 games to open season

Associated PressNov 6, 2020, 9:51 PM EST

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Images

The Pac-12 football season is getting off to a shaky start.

The opener between Utah and Arizona on Saturday in Salt Lake City was canceled due to a rise in positive COVID-19 cases within the Utes program.

Utah athletic director Mark Harlan said a number of positive coronavirus tests Friday morning put Utah below the Pac-12’s minimum threshold of 53 available scholarship players under the conference’s game cancelation policy. The Pac-12 approved the request on Friday.

“The cancellation of the our football game is a very difficult outcome to accept, but it absolutely is the right decision under the circumstances,” Harlan said in a statement. “While I am heartbroken for our student-athletes and everyone associated with Utah Athletics, as well as our great fans, our No. 1 guiding principle is the health and safety of our student-athletes.”

The cancellation is the second in two days for the Pac-12, which is set to kick off its seven-game season this weekend after spending the past several weeks watching as other conferences began playing. The game between Washington California was canceled Thursday.

Games between Arizona State and No. 20 Southern California, UCLA and Colorado, Washington State and Oregon State, along with Stanford at No. 12 Oregon are still scheduled to be played Saturday.

“The cancellation of this game, following yesterday’s cancellation of the Washington at Cal football game, is of course incredibly disappointing to our student-athletes and our fans,” the Pac-12 said in a statement. “At the same time it is an indication that our health and safety protocols are working in identifying positive cases and contact tracing cases.

“While all of us want to see our football student-athletes on the field competing, our number one priority must continue to be the health and safety of all those connected to Pac-12 football programs.”

In all, 10 Bowl Subdivision games this week were either canceled or postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the total to 47 since Aug. 26.

Two Conference USA games scheduled for this weekend, Charlotte’s game at Middle Tennessee and UTSA’s visit to Rice, were postponed earlier Friday due to positive tests and contact tracing protocols.

Utah will, barring more positive tests, now open its season Nov. 13 at UCLA.

Arizona’s new season opener will be Nov. 14 against USC.

“Our football program and athletics department have worked incredibly hard in preparation to take the field on Saturday,” Arizona AD Dave Heeke said in a statement. I could not be more disappointed that our players, coaches and staff will be unable to experience game day, which they have prepared months for. With that said, health and safety must continue to be our guiding principles throughout these uncertain times.”