The only man to fill the role of head coach of the Charlotte 49ers football program will not return to coach the 49ers after the 2018 season. Brad Lambert will not be retained by the university, a statement from Charlotte Athletic Director Mike Hill said on Sunday. A national search for a new head coach is now underway for the young Charlotte program.
“We’ve decided to make a change in our football program,” Hill said in a released statement. “It is a decision I made after an opportunity to assess my first football season here. It’s about the trajectory of the program and putting us in the best position for the future. We elected to make this decision now so that we could begin the search immediately.”
A former assistant with Georgia and Wake Forest, Lambert was hired to be the head coach of the new Charlotte program in 2011, two years before the football program officially stepped foot on a football field for a game. Lambert coached Charlotte to back-to-back years with 5-6 records in the FCS for the first two years of the program’s existence. Charlotte moved up to the FBS in 2015 as a member of Conference USA but the program has yet to record a winning season. Charlotte has gone 21-48 under Lambert since 2013, and the 49ers will once again finish below .500 this week regardless of the outcome of a final regular season game against Florida Atlantic.
Lambert will coach Charlotte’s final game of the season this weekend against FAU.