Mitch Stewart, a former Ohio Valley Conference head coach who’s spent the past two years running the offense for Chris Hatcher’s Samford Bulldogs, is on the move.
Sources tell FootballScoop that Stewart, who previously served as head coach at Murray State, is accepting the offensive coordinator position at Middle Tennessee State University.
Stewart is in line to replace Brent Dearmon, who served the 2021 season as the Blue Raiders’ offensive coordinator and departed last month for the same offensive play-caller role at Florida Atlantic University.
For Samford, Stewart immediately helped ignite the Bulldogs’ offense a year ago. Samford paced the Southern Conference in scoring offense, had five players earn All-SoCon honors and then Stewart’s offense followed-up with a 38 points-per-game average during the fall 2021 campaign.
MTSU is coming off a rejuvenating 7-6 campaign under Rick Stockstill that it punctuated with a Bahamas Bowl win against Toledo. Stewart’s first game as the Blue Raiders’ offensive play-caller will be Sept. 3 at James Madison, which is transitioning to the Football Bowls Subdivision after a dominant stretch at the Football Championship Subdivision level.
A Valdosta State graduate, Stewart early in his career worked multiple seasons at Georgia Southern.