Charlotte 49er Football

Football stadium will start out with 15,300 seats with the ability to expand to 40,000. Evidently, the coaching search has been pushed up a little.

 

Looks nice . . . Now why do Judy Rose & Co. want to push back putting in the lights ? Don't be cheap on your team's home field Judy, buy them now !!!!!!!

 

I think lights are like an extra half million dollars. There are other, big time programs, that don't have lights as well. I imagine the lights will come but for now we need things like shoulder pads, etc.

 

Update from the Charlotte AD on the coaching search. No hints given but a well written article.

Charlotte 49ers football is looking for Coach Right

 

Evidently, Charlotte will be facing VA Tech in 2019.

 

Yep, it's true.

lol & Sorenson article.

49ers dare to think big with football

 

The line just opened at Va Tech -103.

 

lol. Yeah, think we'll cover?

 

From the Charlotte Bizness Journal . . .

49ers mining for coach, stadium

Charlotte Business Journal - by Erik Spanberg
Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 8:18pm EST
. ..
Erik Spanberg
Senior staff writer

Email: [email protected]

Afternoon games, no marching band and a coach hired by April 1: UNC Charlotte isn’t quite ready for some football, but it’s getting closer.

Chancellor Phil Dubois and athletic director Judy Rose fielded questions from students and offered thoughts on a range of football-related topics during an hour-long town hall on Wednesday. First up is hiring the head coach — Rose said the school is narrowing its list of candidates — to put a face on the program and begin promoting and building it.

Next comes work on the $45 million stadium and football complex to be built on campus. Groundbreaking for those projects is April 28. Jenkins Peer Architects and DLR Group designed the stadium and football headquarters.

The stadium will open in 2013, the same year the 49ers begin play.

Student fees will pay most of the operating and capital costs for football. The school is raising money through the sale of seat licenses — 3,357 have been sold to date, generating $4.5 million — and gifts. The latter totals $1.8 million from 17 donors. Rose wants more private contributions and is in talks with unnamed parties to put a corporate or family name on the stadium ($5 million minimum), the playing field ($2.5 million) and fieldhouse ($2.5 million).

All but one of the school’s 11 opponents for the first season have been scheduled, including the opener against Campbell University. It will be a while before UNC Charlotte schedules more familiar, big-name schools.

As a start-up program, the 49ers will spend two seasons getting acclimated before accepting invitations to be sacrificial lambs for bigger schools, games that bring a big paycheck and, typically, a lopsided loss on the road. Consider a newly announced 2019 trip to play Atlantic Coast Conference power Virginia Tech as Exhibit A.

For home dates at the 15,000-seat stadium soon to begin construction, expect afternoon kickoffs. Rose said lights won’t be installed during the first season or two unless construction comes in well below budget. Installing lights will cost $800,000. Wiring will be part of the initial construction, ensuring lights will be added as soon as the money is available.

Finances also explain the school’s decision to forgo a marching band for at least several years. Rose pegs the investment at $250,000 annually for a band, plus the start-up cost.

UNC Charlotte has yet to join a conference, though school officials say they’re working on an affiliation. The 49ers will play in the lower-tier football championship subdivision — think Appalachian State — and Dubois made it clear a jump to the bowl subdivision is far off in the future. Similarly, the stadium can be expanded to 40,000 seats, but “we have to be sure we can fill our stadium before we start thinking about expansion,” the chancellor says.

 

so they can sign redshirts for 2012? Why would that many players sign for the ability to have literally no shot to play? get a scholarship to not have to do anything?