University of Charleston Football Division and Schedule 2023

The University of Charleston football coaching staffs are Quinn Sanders, Luke Barker, Mike Tesch, Zack Santolla, and more.

There are 8 primary coaching staffs in football but in total 51 staff in overall athletic coaching according to the University of Charleston staff directory. Sanders is the head coach of the Golden Eagles Football team and others assist him in the different fields.

The indefatigable personnel of the mentoring team seems to have been working significantly in molding their players to resist the competitive environment of American football.

Let’s go through such indelible human resources and their designations in detail. 

Quinn Sanders – Head Coach

Quinn Sanders was appointed as the 4th Head coach of the University’s Golden Eagles football team on March 1, 2022. 

The head coach started his coaching career by mentoring quarterbacks, wide receivers, and defensive backs at South Walton High School in FL. He also served as the head coach of the JV team. 

Sanders himself had played for the Charleston and interned with the coaching staff of the University. In 2015 he coached the wide receiver and assisted the Eagle’s offense toward a record-breaking output. 

Under Sanders’s command, Augustin was titled All-Conference selection and got 900 yards with 10 touchdowns in a single season of the same year.

Quinn led his first fleet of quarterbacks for the 2017 season where the starter Mason Olszewski set the record of 69% completion record for a single season. 

Sanders’s coaching continues to grow the players in terms of their score production. In the 2019 fall season, Brant Grisel the starting offense got 3,117 single-season passing yards and 27 TDs creating history.  

Grisel was also named All-Conference, an Academic All-American, and Academic All-American of the Year. 

During Sanders’s first season as offensive coordinator in the Spring of 2021, the UC won Mountain East Conference South Division Championship. 

In the Fall season of the same year, the UC went on an average of 36 points per game and was one of the most balanced offense in the nation with an average of 200 yards in both passing and rushing. 

The miracles of Sanders as the head coach are yet to watch.

Luke Barker – Offensive Coordinator

Luke Barker first served at the University of Charleston in 2012 as the offensive Assistant. After that, he rejoined the university in 2021 as the Run Game Coordinator on the Offensive Line. 

 With his experience and knowledge from several years of mentoring at other universities and football teams the offense average of the UC that year was 221.8 rushing a game and he also assisted Charleston’s football to win MEC South Divisional Championship. 

Barker subsequently became successful in guiding the country’s best ground attack that year. The Eagle completed that season by being 3rd in the Mountain East Conference with 8-2. 

Coach Luke also contributed to leading the Charleston offensive to Honorable Mention All-American and MEC Freshman of the Year. He coached 1st Team All-MEC receiver Donovan McCollister and 2nd Team All-MEC receiver Barnabas Baning. 

The Golden Eagles got 6 All-MEC honors under Like Barker. 

Zack Santolla – Defensive Line

Santolla, the native of Virginia has already spent his 7 years with the university coaching and assisting players in the defensive line. Zack joined the uni in 2016 during which he got John Cominsky titled an All-MEC defensive lineman.

Coach Santolla continued to pass on the success to the players and the team. In 2017 the team ranked in the top 10 defense nationally. During the 2018 season, All three starters on the defensive line were recognized as All-MEC.

The UC was listed in the top 25 rank nationally in Rush defense and Team Tackles for Loss. Kenny Randall was nominated for Cliff Harris Award the same season and also made it to the 2020 NFL Draft.

The Golden Eagles won the 2021 South Division Championship of the Mountain East Conference. 

Since the association of Santolla in 2016, the team has received 12 All-MEC selections, 3 Super Region I performers, 2 All-Americans, and 5 Cliff Harris Award Nominees.

Jalen Hairston – Defensive Coordinator

Jalen Hairston already served as the Assistant Coach at the UC for the 2020-2021 season earlier and went to IUP after that. He rejoined the team in 2022 and currently working as the defensive coordinator.

In the 2021 season, he coached linebacker Malachi Newell who was able to make it to the First-Team All-PSAC selection, and Tyrone Fowler who got selected as the PSAC West Freshman of the Year.

The Martinsville, Virginia native has served a number of other teams and is currently in his tenure with the Golden Eagles as the defensive coordinator.

The University of Charleston has released a roster of 99 football players. Among them, the starter players for each position are mentioned in the list below:

Defensive End

Tizlam Muhammad
Richard Souffrant
PK Achkah Yensu

Defensive Back

Nirion Washington
Ra’shaad Morris
Duane Bland

Quarter Back

Davis Black
Javonte Howard
Ryker Brown
Ean Hamrie

Line Backer

Willie Floyd
Michael Perry
Breece Hoff
Micah Hancock

Running Back

Phillip Fleshman
Chavon Wright
Josh Brown
Alex Brink
Kolton Goldie

Defensive Line

Oyson Yuille
Daquan Stevenson
Casey Hudson

Tight End

Champion Gillespie
Trey Hatcher
Marquise Morgan

Kicker/Punter

Hayden Pack
Tim McCutchen

Offensive Line

Will Belongia
Luke Hill
Nijil Amburgey

These are the starter players in different positions. There are other several second and third-line players as well as backups. Their names, strengths, and skills are mentioned in the official roster of the Charleston Golden Eagle Football team.

The Charleston Golden Eagles team is scheduled to play 11 upcoming games in 2023. All of the games are of Division II Mountain East Conference. 

The MEC released all the schedules for the game of 2023. Let’s have a look at the UC football schedule in the table below along with the dates and venue: 

Among the list above the West Virginia State University New Jackets football team is the main rival of The Charleston Golden Eagles. The Eagles had to bear a 35-42 loss in their last game with the New Jackets on December 11, 2022. 

Among 13 matches since 2010, The Golden Eagles went victorious in 11 games and lost only 2 matches including that of last season. 

Charleston’s largest margin of victory was in 2012 in which they won by a 62-0 score at the home ground. The 28-51 loss in 2017 was their all-time greatest margin loss with the New Jackets, which also in their home ground. 

35-31 win over West Virginia is their smallest margin of victory during the 2018 season. 

Similarly, with West Liberty University, they got a 34-26 victory in the last season. In a total of eleven matches to date, The Eagles have won 7 matches and lost 4. 

The Golden Eagle’s largest margin of victory with the West Liberty team was 42-13 in 2014 and the smallest was 42-37 in 2015. 

The rivalry with Fairmont State University is also not new. Among a total of 13 matches played between them, 10 remained with The Golden Eagles and 3 went to the Fairmont team. UC’s Last season’s winning margin was 40-38.

The longest win streak was 4 games and the longest losing streak was 2 games.

The Eagles played 3 matches but never won any match with Frostburg State University. They lost their last match by a 28-34 margin. 

Among the 5 games with UNC Pembroke University, they won over 3 and lost 2 matches. Their last win margin was 70-21.