With the opening of USF’s football season just over two months away, Green, Gold, and Bold will examine each opponent the Bulls will face in the 2025 season.
Here’s the fifth in the series as the Bulls open play in the American Athletic Conference.
Team: Charlotte 49ers
When: Friday, October 3, 7 p.m. at Raymond James Stadium
Head coach: Tim Albin. This is Albin’s first season at Charlotte after four seasons as the head coach at Ohio University. He had a 33-19 record, highlighted by three straight 10-win seasons from 2022-24.
Last year’s record: 5-7. The season was basically a disaster for the 49ers, who fired head coach Biff Poggi after a 3-7 start that included a 59-24 blowout loss to USF.
Name to know: Caleb Curtain. He was a two-time FCS All-American in four seasons at Elon before coming to Charlotte through the transfer portal. He led Elon in tackles for consecutive years and had seven career interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown.
The biggest potential weakness: That’s hard to pinpoint. This isn’t as much a rebuild for the 49ers as it is a do-over, almost starting from scratch. Charlotte underwent a massive roster overhaul, with 15 starters and 35 players from last year’s roster transferring to other schools.
Reinforcements came through the portal, but Charlotte relied heavily on that method last season, and it didn’t work.
Albin is a solid hire as the head coach, but he will need time to put this program on solid footing.
The biggest question mark: Whatever game plan Charlotte's leadership had in putting this program together, the one thing we can definitively say is that it didn't work. Poggi was hired partly because he was a former hedge fund manager, and Charlotte leaders believed he could juggle coaching while generating cash for a program that needs a lot of it. Oh, and patience. The 49ers are
Interesting things to know: Charlotte has just one winning season in its ten years as an FBS program, and that was 7-6 in 2019 when the 49ers were part of Conference USA. Last season's 5-7 record -- interim coach Tim Brewster won two games after Poggi was fired -- is tied for the second-best in 49ers history.
Despite that, fans seem excited about what Albin is trying to build. Season tickets were sold out for the first time in program history.
Charlotte is also about to start the first phase of the $70 million expansion project at Richardson Stadium. Upon completion, the seating capacity will increase from 18,000 to 21,000.