REPORT: FIU Focusing On Familiar CUSA Names For Offensive Coordinator and Tight Ends Coach

Kevin Barral | Dec 18, 2024

Sep 9, 2023; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders head coach Rick Stockstill reacts to a call against the Missouri Tigers during the first half at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

A couple of weeks after FIU hired Willie Simmons to become the program's next head coach, Simmons is beginning to fill out his staff.

Per John Brice of FootballScoop, FIU is targeting UAB's quarterbacks coach Nick Coleman to become the program's next offensive coordinator and longtime Middle Tennessee head coach Rick Stockstill to become the school's next tight ends coach.

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Coleman, a former quarterback at Middle Tennessee State when Stockstill and Simmons were coaches there, began his coaching career with the Blue Raiders as a graduate assistant. After stops at NAIA, JUCO and FCS schools, Coleman made his way to South Carolina to become an offensive analyst.

With South Carolina, Coleman helped the Gamecocks score 30+ points in eight games and dropped 50 or more points in three games in 2022. During Coleman's time in the SEC, he worked with Spencer Rattler who threw for over 3,000 yards and 18 touchdowns.

These last two seasons with the UAB Blazers, Coleman has played a major role in developing starting QB Jacob Zeno. In 2023, where Zeno played in 11 games, he threw for 3,126 yards, 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions. UAB had the third-best passing offense in the American Athletic Conference that season. They went 4-8 in 2023 and with Zeno playing only four games in 2024, they went 3-9.

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Rick Stockstill has a very rich coaching background. He began as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Bethune-Cookman and later spent time at UCF before spending a 13-year stint at Clemson in a variety of roles. After some time at East Carolina from 2003-04 and South Carolina for 2005, he would become the head coach at Middle Tennessee from 2006-2023.

As the head coach at MTSU, Stockstill went 113-111, winning the Sun Belt in 2006, becoming Conference USA East Division Champions in 2018 and was named Sun Belt Coach of the Year twice and once in Conference USA.

In Stockstill's Middle Tennessee staff from 2007-2011 was Willie Simmons who served as the running backs coach from 2007-09, then pass-game coordinator and running backs coach in 2010, and then became the offensive coordinator and running backs coach in 2011. MTSU's quarterback during those days was the aforementioned Coleman.

In 2024, Stockstill went back to his alma mater Florida State to become an offensive analyst.

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