AAC Football Preview Series: Charlotte 49ers
Head coach Biff Poggi has big ambitions, but the 49ers are faced with several difficult questions.
Charlotte football’s brief history has been one of ludicrous ambition.
Conceptualized in the early 2000s, declared feasible in 2007, and officially birthed in 2008, the program went from an idea to an AAC member in little more than a decade. Through municipal bonds, increases in student fees, and donations from Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, former Charlotte AD Judy Rose spearheaded a massive fundraising effort that allowed the 49ers to double their athletic budget and build a stadium from scratch in fewer than five years.
Originally intending to spend several seasons at the FCS level, Charlotte received a surprise invitation to Conference USA in early 2012, a development that caused the school to consolidate their football timeline to an unbelievably aggressive degree. By May of that year, the 49ers had announced their intentions to jump to the FBS level by the fall of 2015.
It’s only fitting a program that has shot for the stars since its inception is now led by one of the most determined men in the business.
Francis Xavier "Biff” Poggi, named the third head coach in Charlotte history on November 15th, 2022, is an oddity. A millionaire hedge fund manager-turned prep coaching legend-turned Jim Harbaugh’s right hand man, Poggi does not have the resume, or the demeanor, typical of those in his profession. He holds no prior experience as a college head coach. He is famously indifferent to formal dress codes. He wears his heart on his sleeve at all times, perhaps to a fault.
“They don’t know sh*t. I would like to take whoever those writers were that voted on that, hold them upside down by their ankles, and smack their heads off the ground,” Poggi said of the 2023 AAC preseason media poll that ranked the 49ers last, going on to predict that his team would win the conference outright.
During the honeymoon phase that comes in the wake of every new coach’s hiring, Poggi’s bluster and bravado worked. The Maryland native’s intent to turn Charlotte into an east coast powerhouse fired up donors and gave the program an electricity it had been missing for years.
Unfortunately, Poggi has since had to wrestle with an inconvenient truth: the 49ers have never actually been good at football.
Charlotte spent its FCS existence undergoing predictable growing pains, posting consecutive 5-6 records and dropping games to D2 UNC-Pembroke and D3 Wesley College. The 2015 jump to the FBS treated them no better; under inaugural head coach Brad Lambert, Charlotte failed to finish any better than 8th place in Conference USA. His successor, Will Healy, led the Niners to their sole bowl appearance in 2019 but was fired just three years later. Over the nine seasons they’ve spent in college football’s highest subdivision, Charlotte sports an all-time record of 32-71.
Things didn’t get better in Poggi’s inaugural campaign. Despite the coach’s bold preseason remarks, his squad posted a record of 3-9 (2-6) last season, the exact same mark that cost Healy his job in 2022. The offense was a wreck. The defense, while far from elite, was talented and showed flashes of excellence, but most of the progress made by last year’s Niners has been reset. Over half of the 2023 team’s contributors have departed, either into the portal or into the job market. On paper, things aren’t pretty.
Charlotte isn’t completely hopeless heading into the fall — they reeled in Power 5 transfers at nearly every position, have a reason to be hopeful at quarterback, and bring back multiple productive defenders — but Poggi and company must begin to deliver on their promises with a roster widely regarded as the conference’s second-worst.
Offense
Even in a conference full of inept offenses, Charlotte scraped the bottom of the barrel in 2023. Last year’s unit ranked 127th in SP+, behind even miserable East Carolina and Navy, and put up a 34.6% success rate, the third-lowest mark in the country. They struggled mightily to convert on red-zone opportunities, scoring an average of 2.8 points per trip inside the opponent’s 40. Charlotte’s only saving grace was an all-or-nothing passing attack and an even more all-or-nothing ground game, both of which occasionally ripped off chunk plays, but the Niners were too inefficient for their explosiveness to make a difference.
Charlotte employed a two-quarterback system, putting most of the passing duties in the hands of Trexler Ivey while using the athletic, since-departed Jalon Jones as a de facto running back. Ivey returns in 2024, but he’s expected to lose his job to Florida transfer Max Brown. Brown appeared in six games for the Gators last season, nearly leading a road upset of Missouri and making a start against undefeated Florida State. On paper, his acquisition spells a clear upgrade to one of the nation’s least productive QB rooms.
Charlotte’s skill positions return plenty of starters, including leading receiver Jairus Mack, second-leading rusher Terron Kellman, electric RB/returner Henry Rutledge, and productive tight end Colin Weber, but continuity alone won’t drag the Niners out of offensive hell. After the departure of former four-star RB recruit Durell Robinson, Poggi turned to the transfer portal in the hopes of finding upside, bringing in South Carolina WR O’Mega Blake, Iowa State RB Cartevious Norton, MTSU WR Justin Olson, Michigan RB CJ Stokes, and Independence CC WR Isaiah Myers, all of whom are expected to contribute in the fall.
Another name to monitor: RB Hahsaun Wilson. A longtime walk-on who spent the first 2.5 years of his career on special teams, Wilson erupted in a November 2023 game against Memphis, rushing for 198 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries. Although not projected to start at the time of writing, Wilson is an intriguing option whose talent is now apparent.
Charlotte’s biggest question mark is the offensive line, where returning center Jonny King will be surrounded by four Power 5 transfers: Tennessee’s Mo Clipper Jr., Texas A&M’s Jordan Moko, Clemson’s Mitchell Mayes, and Florida’s Jordan Herman. None of the newcomers save Mayes saw much playing time at their previous stops, but the Niners are gambling that the influx of talent will upgrade a unit that was mediocre in 2023.
There exists a cogent vision for improvement on this Charlotte offense — get competent QB play from Brown, find a gem or two at the skill positions, and hope the down-transfers gel in the trenches — but the Niners are banking on potential rather than proven production, and the roster poses far more questions than it holds answers.
And even if everything goes according to plan, Charlotte still must address their…
Defense
The Charlotte defense didn’t fare particularly well in SP+ or even in rudimentary metrics like points per game last season, with miserable average starting field position, a low havoc rate, and a weak strength of schedule holding the unit back; however, it was inarguably the stronger side of the ball. Led by talented linebackers Demetrius Knight II and Nikhai Hill-Green, along with all-conference edge rusher Eyabi Okie, the Niner D boasted the nation’s 50th-highest success rate and ranked 68th in EPA.
Unfortunately, each of the aforementioned players have moved on, along with four more of the 2023 team’s top-ten leading tacklers. The cupboard isn’t quite bare — all-conference cornerback Dontae Balfour returns, along with productive DE Demon Clowney — but each of Charlotte’s position groups is facing a rebuild.
The interior defensive line, the Niners’ weakest link in 2023, will be headed by newcomers Dre Martin and Dre Butler. Martin, a redshirt sophomore, spent the first two seasons of his career at South Carolina, while Butler is a well-traveled veteran who has made stops at Auburn, Liberty, and Michigan State. Behind them will sit returning contributors Dez Morgan and Jonathan Wallace.
Although Charlotte brings back several experienced linebackers, including Clowney, physical run-stopper Stone Handy, program staple Prince Bemah, and the improving Reid Williford, replacing their departed stars’ production will be a monumental task; much of the burden will be placed on FCS transfer Aidan Kaler.
The front seven has plenty of problems to solve, and with just two returning starters, the secondary is in the same boat. Former Boston College safety CJ Clinkscales has received positive reviews from Charlotte DC Ryan Osborn, and DII transfer Eltayeb Bushra sports a unique statistical profile, but few DBs on this roster have extended FBS experience. The excellent Balfour will need to help establish this unit’s identity, and quickly.
To an even greater end than the offense, the Charlotte D has more questions than answers. The returners are productive but few, and the unit as a whole has less obvious starpower than it did in 2023. The Niners will probably be stouter defensively than, say, Temple, but the worst-case scenario is a bottom-10 finish in SP+.
TL;DR
Three Best Players:
CB Dontae Balfour
LB Prince Bemah
QB Max Brown
Three Burning Questions:
Can transfer quarterback Max Brown save the day?
Will the brand-new offensive line gel?
Can the front seven recover from devastating losses?
Outlook and Prediction:
There is a path to offensive improvement, as outlined earlier, and the defense brings back multiple productive players. But at the end of the day, a team that went 3-9 last year is losing most of its linebacking corps, most of its secondary, and most of its offensive line. It’s hard to be optimistic about Charlotte.
Unless Biff Poggi finds several hidden gems across multiple position groups, his team will be among the conference’s (and perhaps country’s) worst. Unfortunately for the Niners, their schedule does them no favors.
Charlotte’s non-conference slate consists of an FCS game, a toss-up home game against a James Madison team losing over 96% of its production, and two buy games at power conference opponents. At best, the Niners will be 2-2 going into AAC play, at which point they’ll likely be underdogs for the rest of the season: Charlotte plays conference games against USF, Tulane, ECU, UAB, Rice, Memphis, FAU, and Navy, the last four of which are on the road.