The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers football team represents

Coastal Carolina University Coastal Carolina University (CCU or Coastal) is a public university in Conway, South Carolina. Founded in 1954 as Coastal Carolina Junior College, and later joining the University of South Carolina System as USC Coastal Carolina, it became an in ...

in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level. The Chanticleers are members of the Sun Belt Conference, fielding its teams at the FBS level since 2017. The Chanticleers play their home games at James C. Benton Field at Brooks Stadium in Conway, South Carolina. Their head coach is Tim Beck, who was hired after head coach

Jamey Chadwell Jamey Chadwell (born January 10, 1977) is an American football coach and former player, who serves as the head coach at Liberty University; he also served as head coach for Costal Carolina and interim HC in the 2017 season while permanent head co ...

was hired by

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

History

It was announced in the late 1990s that CCU would establish a football squad in the coming years. The

Coastal Carolina Chanticleers The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (, ) are the athletic teams that represent Coastal Carolina University. They participate in Division I of the NCAA as a member of the Sun Belt Conference in most sports, having joined that conference as a full ...

football program played its inaugural season in 2003 on campus at Brooks Stadium. The team's first coach was David Bennett, who held the position from the team's inception until December 9, 2011. The university named Joe Moglia, former CEO of

TD Ameritrade TD Ameritrade is a stockbroker that offers an electronic trading platform for the trade of financial assets including common stocks, preferred stocks, futures contracts, exchange-traded funds, forex, options, mutual funds, fixed income investmen ...

, as its new head coach on December 20, 2011. In the program's short history, the team has defeated such traditional Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) powers as

James Madison University James Madison University (JMU, Madison, or James Madison) is a public research university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the institution was renamed Madison Coll ...

(ranked No. 1 at the time), Furman University,

Wofford College Wofford College is a private liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was founded in 1854. The campus is a national arboretum and one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the America ...

, and the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fa ...

. The program has won seven Big South Conference championships and has had several former players enter professional NFL careers. Coastal's primary football rivals in FCS play are

and

Charleston Southern Charleston Southern University (CSU) is a private Baptist university in North Charleston, South Carolina. It is affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention ( Southern Baptist Convention). History Charleston Southern University was ch ...

. Coastal Carolina's first full season as an FBS team was in 2017. The Chanticleers earned the program's first win as an FBS program when they played The UMass Minutemen on September 2, 2017. The final score to this game was 38-28. The Chanticleers had a tough time winning games during the 2017 season, as they went on to finish the year with a record of 3-9. Ending the 2017 season on a positive note, Coastal Carolina earned the program's first Sun Belt Conference win with a 13-7 win over the Idaho Vandals. Idaho has since left the Sun Belt Conference. The final game of the 2017 season was the program's second Sun Belt Conference win with a 28-17 win at home against the Georgia Southern Eagles. The Chanticleers first FBS season in 2017 proved that, with the proper corrections made to the team, the Chanticleers could be a good football team. Building off their momentum built at the end of the 2017 season, Coastal Carolina took the next step as an FBS program and finished the season with a record of 5-7. Some notable wins for the Chanticleers during their 2018 season were against the UAB Blazers, Louisiana Lafayette Ragin Cajuns, and Georgia State Panthers.

David Bennett era (2003–2011)

In 2006, the Chanticleers made school history when the team received its first FCS playoff berth, also the first playoff berth for the Big South Conference, losing a first-round contest to Appalachian State. Appalachian State would go on to win the FCS national championship that season. In 2010, Coastal went to the playoffs for the second time after winning the Big South Championship (a three-way tie with

and Stony Brook) and received the Big South's first ever automatic playoff bid. The Chanticleers returned to the playoffs in

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

. On November 9, 2014, Coastal was ranked as the No. 1 team in the nation, a first for the school and the Big South Conference. On September 11, 2010, Coastal Carolina played a five-overtime game against the

Towson Tigers The Towson Tigers, formerly the ''Towson College Knights'', are the athletics teams of Towson University. All of the major athletic teams compete in the Colonial Athletic Association with 19 Division I athletic teams (13 in women's sports, 6 in ...

, the longest game in school history. Coastal Carolina went to

Towson, Maryland Towson () is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Baltimore County and the second-most populous unincor ...

, looking for their first win of the season after losing the previous week to West Virginia. Coastal Carolina would lose the game 47–45. The Chanticleers left the Big South Conference at the end of the 2015–16 school year and joined the Sun Belt Conference, initially as a non-football member. At that time, the football team began a two-year transition to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The first season of the transition in 2016 was spent as an FCS independent; the Chanticleers officially joined Sun Belt football July 1, 2017, with full bowl eligibility following in 2018.

Jamey Chadwell era (2019–present)

Jamey Chadwell was introduced as the program's third head coach on January 18, 2019. He previously served as the team's interim head coach in 2017 when head coach

Joe Moglia Joseph Hugh Moglia (born April 1, 1949) is an American businessman and former football coach. He served as head football coach at Coastal Carolina University from 2012 to 2016 and again in 2018 after spending the 2017 season on medical leave. D ...

took a medical leave of absence.

2020 season

On October 14, 2020, Coastal Carolina got its first win against a ranked FBS team by defeating No. 21

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

30–27. Following the win, the AP ranked Coastal Carolina No. 25, making it their first time as a national ranked team. The same week, the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

rankings listed Coastal at No. 20. For the remainder of the regular season, Coastal remained in the

AP Top 25 The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

. Their highest AP ranking that year was #14 in the fourteenth week, with a CFP ranking of No. 18 the same week. Their original opponent for Week 14 (Dec 5th) was

, but Liberty canceled the game citing concerns related to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. Coastal’s new opponent for that week became No. 13

BYU Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day S ...

. The undefeated Chanticleers created national attention and interest in the team, and their matchup with BYU led

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

to broadcast College GameDay from Conway on December 5th. Coastal won 22–17, with the game ending when BYU was stopped one yard short of the goal-line. The victory resulted in Coastal Carolina ranked No. 11 by the AP Top 25 Rankings and No. 13 by the CFP Playoffs for Week 15. With the conference championship game scheduled for December 19th, CCU was set up for another showdown with Louisiana. However, they would have to settle for a co-championship with Louisiana, with both named champions after the Chanticleers found themselves unable to play when a positive COVID-19 test was found within the CCU team. Coastal ended their season against Liberty in the first bowl game in team history, the

Cure Bowl The Cure Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game that has been played in December of each year in Orlando, Florida since 2015. It was originally held at Camping World Stadium before moving to Exploria Stadium in 2022. The Cure Bow ...

, losing 37–34 in overtime.

2021 season

CCU was ranked No. 22 to start the season, and won their first six games to rise up to No. 15 before a loss to Appalachian State ended the streak. They won four of their next five games but finished second in the East Division. They were invited to the

2021 Cure Bowl The 2021 Cure Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 17, 2021, at Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The seventh edition of the Cure Bowl, the game featured the Northern Illinois Huskies of the Mid-American Conference and th ...

where CCU defeated

Northern Illinois Northern Illinois is a region generally covering the northern third of the U.S. state of Illinois. The region is by far the most populous of Illinois with nearly 9.7 million residents as of 2010. Economics Northern Illinois is dominated by t ...

47-41 to earn the first bowl game victory in school history.

Conference affiliations

* Big South Conference (2003–2015) * Sun Belt Conference (2016–present)

Championships

Conference championships

Coastal Carolina has won seven Big South Conference championships, winning two of them outright and five shared, and has won one Sun Belt Conference championship which was shared with

in the 2020 season. The

2020 Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game The Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game is an annual college football game that determines the season champion of the Sun Belt Conference (SBC). The game is played between the SBC regular-season divisional champions from the East and W ...

was not played when Coastal Carolina was unable to participate due to the

. † Co-champions

Division championships

Coastal Carolina won their first division championship in the 2020 season. ^ The 2020 championship game was not played due to Coastal Carolina being impacted by the

Postseason games

NCAA Division I FCS playoffs

Coastal Carolina made six appearances in the NCAA Division I Football Championship playoffs before moving to the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) in 2017, going 4–6.

Bowl games

Coastal Carolina has participated in three bowl games, going 1–2.

Head coaches

Coastal Carolina has had three head coaches. † Interim head coach in 2017 due to medical sabbatical taken by Joe Moglia. ^ Interim head coach for the 2022 Birmingham Bowll

Individual award winners

National award winners – coaches

* AP Coach of the Year :''FBS National Coach of the Year'' :2020:

Home Depot Coach of the Year The Coach of the Year Award is given annually to college football's top head coach. The award for the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision is selected by ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network ...