College football is about to have a new youngest head coach.
Sources tell FootballScoop that fast-rising offensive coordinator Kris McCullough, already among the sport’s youngest offensive play-callers along with Princeton play-caller Mike Willis, who’s been instrumental in leading the Tigers to a trio of recent Ivy League titles, is expected to be named today as the new interim head coach for NCAA Division II program East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.
A 26-year-old native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who entered coaching at his alma mater, Henderson State, McCullough has Football Bowls Subdivision experience from time at Old Dominion and also served as the running backs coach and assistant special teams coordinator at Fairmont State. Sensing an opportunity to continue building at East Central, McCullough earlier this coaching cycle declined an offer to become offensive coordinator at an Football Championship Subdivision program.
McCullough, at minimum, will serve as the head coach for the remainder of 2022, and there's a sense that he has a very really opportunity to land the post on a permanent basis.
It’s been with the Tigers’ program that McCullough’s career has taken off. Hired in 2018 to coach ECU’s quarterbacks, as well as serve as the program’s special teams coordinator, McCullough ascended to the offensive coordinator position prior to the 2020 season. He added assistant head coaching duties in January 2021.
The Tigers have won nine games since McCullough claimed the play-calling duties, with an abbreviated 2020 season last spring and a 7-4 ledger during the fall 2021 campaign that marked East Central’s best record in exactly a decade. McCullough helped East Central close out its ’21 season with a stirring, 30-28 win against heated rival Southeastern Oklahoma State in the Great American Classic.
East Central competes in the Great American Conference, which saw Harding capture the league’s title and subsequent NCAA DII Playoff berth last all.
Sources add that receivers coach Jarvis Pitts is expected to add passing game coordinator responsibilities and defensive line coach Jake Maxwell is expected to move to offensive line and have run game coordinator responsibilities.
More on Al Johnson's move to Wisconsin here.
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