Before taking over ast he head coach at South Alabama, Steve Campbell build a name for himself as a winner at the Division II and FCS level.
First he led Delta State (D-II - MS) to a national title in 2000 with a 14-1 overall record.
Then, after a few assistant coaching jobs at the FBS level at Middle Tennessee State, and Mississippi State for a year each, and then nearly a decade leading the Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College program to a handful of top 10 finishes, Campbell took over at Central Arkansas where he went 33-15 in four seasons, including back-to-back ten-win seasons and postseason appearances in his final two years with the program in 2016 and 2017.
Upon being hired at South Alabama to replace Joey Jones and rebuild the Jags program in December of 2017, Campbell and those that hired him were hoping Campbell would be able to quickly get things back on the winning track.
Two seasons in, wins have been hard to come by. Campbell has led the program to a 3-9 mark in year one and a 2-10 finish this fall.
Athletic director Joel Erdmann sat down with AL.com this week to talk about the state of the program, and shared that in an era where a lot of programs are quick to pull the plug on a coach when the wins aren't coming in fast enough why he hasn't fallen into that trap with Campbell. Asked if a coaching change had crossed his mind, Erdmann shared.
“It never crossed my mind. I will not judge others that have made moves in a short period of time because I don't know the dynamics. But other than wins and losses, what I've observed in the football program is very positive and I do believe that coaches need to be given appropriate amounts of time to build something the right way and not take shortcuts. And so absent anything abnormal — which I have not, and do not observe — the thought of not having coach Campbell back (in 2020) never came to mind.”
Erdmann would later add that he's seen improvement on the field, noting their win over bowl bound Arkansas State in their season finale as one example, and that he's confident in Campbell's abilities to diagnose and provide solutions to get them to where they need to be.