College Football Coaching Changes: Ranking the best hires
25. Georgia Southern Eagles – Tyson Summers replaces Willie Fritz
Georgia Southern lost their head coach Willie Fritz to the Tulane opening (more on him later in this piece) and replaced him with Tyson Summers who has 15 years of coaching experience, but gets his first head coaching opportunity with the Eagles.
Fritz elevated the program so they can compete in the Sun Belt and are coming off an 8-4 season that earned them a berth in the GoDaddy Bowl and a 17-7 record in his two years. Summers, who leaves Colorado State after one year as their defensive coordinator returns to his native Georgia where he was born in Tifton, GA and got his first college coaching job at Georgia Southern in 2006 when he coached safeties.
Prior to his one year at CSU, Summers was the defensive coordinator at Central Florida in 2014 and had a great deal of success with the Knights. In his first season, Summers defense ranked in the top 10 among in total defense, rushing defense, scoring defense and red zone defense, so he can definitely coach defense.
He only has two seasons as a coordinator so he doesn’t have a wealth of experience calling plays, but his youth, enthusiasm and familiarity with the area and program could mean Summers takes Georgia Southern to the next level.
Next: Mike Jinks