Charlotte 49ers, looking for a safe harbor, hire Ohio’s Tim Albin as new football coach
The Charlotte 49ers introduced Tim Albin as their new football coach Monday. And if I was going to describe this hire in one word, it would be:
Safe.
The hiring of Biff Poggi to the same job only two years ago was an out-of-the-box idea that flopped. Albin is a deep-inside-the-box hire: He’s won as a collegiate head coach before, he’s deeply rooted in the college game and he’s survived wholesale roster changes before.
With the Ohio Bobcats, Albin was a whole lot more successful than the late and not-great Charlotte Bobcats ever were, with three straight 10-win seasons from 2022-24.
Shoot, if Albin can have one 10-win season at Charlotte — ever — they’ll throw a parade down the center of campus for the guy.
Albin’s success at Ohio also came with limited resources. His program had an NIL budget that was only a fraction of what Charlotte had to spend last year, according to 49ers athletic director Mike Hill.
“This guy to my left won a MAC conference championship with about a tenth of what our NIL was this year,” Hill said, referring to Albin.
A tenth?! That was the most impressive statistic I heard during Albin’s press conference Monday. From what I understand, Charlotte had an NIL budget of approximately $1.2 million last year, and hope to increase that to the $1.25-1.5 million range in 2025. Given what Albin did with far less, it’s fascinating to think what he and his staff can do with that sort of money.
Albin — who signed a five-year contract with the 49ers — had a first press conference that wasn’t as newsworthy as Poggi’s opening presser two years ago. Poggi promised everything but the sky and never could deliver (although he also got less than two full seasons before the plug was pulled).
Albin, 59, has been around the block enough to know not to over-promise. He gave no timetables about when Charlotte would win — or even go to another bowl game, as it’s been to only one in the program’s 12-year history.
But the new coach proclaimed that “it can be done really, really quick” if the program gets enough money to pay its new and returning players. Several times Albin said “the NIL thing is huge.” He will pursue strong relationships with all the players, as all good coaches do, but he’s also going to pursue money in this new age of college athletics, where paying players is not only above the table, it’s a necessity.
“We’re going to come knocking,” Albin promised.
Albin’s press conference wasn’t the smoothest one I’ve ever been to. His words were halting sometimes, and he seemed overcome with emotion on several occasions. But it did feel genuine. It felt like he could work out here.
And man, does it ever need to work out. Hill has been going through football coaches at a feverish, Carolina Panthers-esque rate, hiring three of them since 2018 (Will Healy, Poggi and now Albin). Very few athletic directors ever get to hire four football coaches. So Hill understandably has made a safe and stable hire here, the sort you make when a football program is flailing and needs to get on solid footing.
Albin did give several glimpses of his personality Monday. He’s from a small town in Oklahoma. He’s a grandfather. He likes fishing and rescue dogs. He really likes aging rocker Sammy Hagar, whom Albin said he has seen in concert more than 20 times.
But mostly, it sounded like he likes football. Hill had wanted a coach with an expertise on one side of the ball. For Albin, that will be the offensive side.
Albin coordinated Ohio’s offense and coached running backs for hall of fame coach Frank Solich at Ohio before succeeding Solich as the Bobcats’ head coach. He believes, like almost every head coach in existence, that you have to run the ball well to have a good offense.
At his first meeting with his Charlotte players, Albin said he tried his hand at retention.“We’re already in the process of keeping who’s here,” he said. “I went in there and said, ‘Look, guys, I’m not here to rebuild and clean house…. Hey, we want you all here. You buy in; we’re going to get this thing done.”
Players will leave anyway, of course. The transfer portal has made college football a free-for-all. Dozens of them come and go every year at most programs.
But Albin and his staff were good talent evaluators at Ohio, and they will need to be very good talent evaluators here. They’ll need to find the right quarterback first of all — keeping Deshawn Purdie around would be huge for the program — and then a number of new linemen on both sides of the ball.
Next year’s 49ers schedule includes non-conference games against Georgia, North Carolina and Appalachian State. Given that and the AAC league schedule, going .500 would be a very worthy goal (this year’s team finished 5-7).
The most important thing Albin said in his press conference was actually the first thing. After all the pomp and circumstance surrounding his introduction — the band, the cheerleaders, the boosters, the applause — he got to the podium and said: “Wow! We’re gonna win.”
That’s what everyone else has tried and failed to do with the 49ers. Charlotte has had one winning season in the past 12 years since the football program was reinstated in 2013.
Albin now gets his chance to fix that. But as the 49ers’ history of football disappointment has taught us, it won’t be easy.
This story was originally published December 9, 2024 at 4:14 PM.
