UCLA Football Preview: Coastal Carolina Begins Tim Beck Era

Beck is just the fourth head coach in Chanticleer football history.

Former North Carolina State offensive coordinator Tim Beck is the new head coach of the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. (Photo Credit: AJ Henderson/goccusports.com)

On December 4, 2022, Coastal Carolina named North Carolina State offensive coordinator Tim Beck as the school’s new football coach. Beck replaces Jamey Chadwell who was hired to replace Hugh Freeze at Liberty University.

Chadwell had built the Chanticleers into one of the best teams in the Sun Belt Conference, despite the fact that the school only transitioned to the FBS in 2016. Over the past three seasons, Coastal Carolina has gone 31-6.

While Beck brings 35 years of coaching experience to the Chanticleers, this is his first head coaching job at the college level. His only previous head coaching experience came during three successful stints as a head coach at the high school level. For the past 18 seasons, Beck has been coaching in the college ranks, primarily as an offensive coordinator.

In fact, Saturday’s game won’t be the first time the Bruins, or Chip Kelly, have crossed paths with Beck. Back in 2013, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Nebraska when UCLA visited the Cornhuskers the week after the tragic death of UCLA’s Nick Pasquale. In that game, Beck’s offensive jumped out to a 21-10 halftime lead, but the Bruin defense shut the Huskers out in the second half and UCLA’s offense put on quite the show in the third quarter when they scored four touchdowns.

Urban Meyer hired Beck as co-offensive coordinator at Ohio State when Tom Herman left to become head coach at Houston, though Beck left the Buckeyes to join Herman at Texas in 2017.

After Texas, Beck was hired as the offensive coordinator at North Carolina State and he would have squared off against UCLA in the 2021 Holiday Bowl if the game hadn’t been cancelled due to a COVID outbreak among the Bruins.

Beck’s staff consists almost entirely of a group of coaches who are new to the Chanticleer program. In fact, outside linebacker and special teams coach Josh Miller is the lone holdover from last year’s coaching staff. As a result, UCLA’s coaching staff may have to rely on NC State tape to have an idea of what to expect from Beck and Coastal Carolina.

Beck’s offensive coordinator Travis Trickett comes to the Chanticleers from South Florida where he served in the same capacity. Last season, the Bulls average 28 points per game despite finishing 1-11. The Bulls’ issues last season appear to be more of a result of terrible defense than a problematic offense. USF’s defense allowed 40 points of more in nine of their eleven losses while the offense scored 30 or more in three of those losses. Trickett does have an impressive resume, having worked under Bobby Bowden, Jimbo Fisher, Nick Saban and Rich Rodriguez.

The Chanticleer defense will be called by defensive coordinator Craig Naivar. This may prove to be a weak spot for Coastal Carolina, given that Naivar doesn’t have a particularly strong history as a defensive coordinator. In fact, Naivar hasn’t been the only defensive coordinator for a team since 2013 when he was at Texas State and, since then, he’s only served as a co-defensive coordinator for three of those nine seasons.

The thing that Naivar does have going for him is a familiarity with the Bruin offense. That’s because he spent 2020 and 2021 as the safeties coach across town at Southern Cal. Naivar also serves as the position coach for the Coastal Carolina safeties.

Naivar’s co-defensive coordinator Dan Carrel doesn’t seem to have a particularly impressive resume either. Carrel was the defensive coordinator for the Michigan Panthers of the USFL, who won just two games in 2022. Before that, Carrel had coached linebackers at UMass, New Mexico and Houston. He also coaches the Chanticleer linebackers.

Let’s look at the Chanticleer special teams.

Special Teams

The Coastal Carolina depth chart lists a pair of redshirt sophomores as possible starting kickers. Normally, that would seem to indicate that the coaching staff hasn’t decided who the starter will be but, given the fact that special teams coach Josh Miller is the lone holdover on the Coastal Carolina staff, this may be one instance where looking at last season may provide an indicator as to who to expect. Based on that, it would look like Kade Hensley should see the bulk of field goal and PAT opportunities while Liam Gray should be the guy handling more of the kickoffs.

Hensley was 8 for 11 on field goal attempts last season and his longest came from 48 yards while Gray missed his only attempt. Hensley made 46 of 47 extra point attempts last year and Gray wasn’t asked to try an extra point.

Conversely, Gray kicked off 49 times last year to Hensley’s 20 kickoffs. Additionally, all of Hensley’s kickoffs came in the first three games of the season, after which Gray settled in as the team’s only kicker to kickoff.

Sophomore Evan Crenshaw will handle punting duties for the Chanticleers. Last year, Credshaw punted 51 times and averaged 38.7 yards per punt. His longest was 54 yards and 19 of his punts resulted in a fair catch and 7 landed inside the opponents’ 20-yard line.

Expect UCLA’s kickoffs to be returned primarily by a guy who has one of the best names in college football. That’s cornerback Matthew McDoom. It seems appropriate that McDoom was able to return one kickoff for a touchdown last season. If the Bruins can’t contain Matthew on kick returns, it may surely be doom for UCLA. So, his name just seems…appropriate.

Based on last season’s stats, I expect senior receiver Tyson Mobley to be returning punts. He led Coastal Carolina last season with nine punt returns and his longest went for 17 yards.

Redshirt sophomore receiver Jared Brown may also see some time returning kicks and punts.


Go Bruins!!!

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