June 6, 2024 at 11:30 p.m.
by Gene Henley
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football program recently rounded out its coaching staff for the 2024 season with the addition of one assistant and the promotion of another.
Mike Yeager, who has been the team’s linebackers coach since 2019, moved into the defensive coordinator position vacated last month when Lorenzo Ward took a job as an assistant at Clemson. Ward also coached safeties, a duty that will now be handled by Wolfgang Shafer.
Yeager has experience as not only a defensive coordinator but as a head coach, having worked in the latter position from 2012-17 at Carthage College, an NCAA Division III program in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He served on an interim basis in the lead role for the final three games in 2012 before officially taking over after the season, and although Carthage won just one game in 2013, the program had consecutive seven-win seasons in 2016-17 as Yeager finished his tenure 23-30.
He had been the defensive coordinator at Carthage in 2011-12, and he had stints in that same role for two programs in Ohio: at Division III’s College of Wooster in 2003-04, and then at Division II’s Tiffin University in 2018 before coming to Chattanooga. His teams went 35-14 with him as defensive coordinator.
“Thankfully it worked out to where we had somebody on staff that could do it,” UTC sixth-year head coach Rusty Wright said in a news release announcing Yeager’s promotion. “We’re not going to change what we do. He’s got his own way of putting his stamp on it, but I think the biggest thing is you know kids are going to hear the same thing over and over again.”
Shafer, meanwhile, spent the past two seasons as the secondary coach at Indiana State — like UTC, a Football Championship Subdivision member within Division I. He also has stints at his alma mater Ithaca (2017), a D-III program in upstate New York, as well as a pair of Football Bowl Subdivision programs: Middle Tennessee State (2017-20) and Texas (2020-21).
“I think it’ll be a good addition for us,” Wright said. “He’s very, very sharp and detail-oriented. He’s already been kind of doing some of the stuff we were already doing schematically, so that helps. I think he’ll be a great addition for us and our DB room.”
Men’s basketball roster restocked
The UTC men’s basketball team recently filled its last scholarship spot with the addition of 6-foot-10, 205-pound Makai Richards, who spent the past two seasons at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.
Richards has 41 games of college experience (16 starts) and has averaged 2.6 points and 1.3 rebounds per game while shooting 66% from the field. He averaged 4.3 points and 2.4 rebounds this past season, when he started 14 games for the Tigers, who compete in Division I’s West Coast Conference.
“He is extremely athletic for his size and has very good hands,” UTC coach Dan Earl said in a release detailing the roster additions. “He will bring rim protection and rebounding to our center position.”
Richards is the sixth transfer this offseason to join the Mocs, who lost three players to graduation and four to the transfer portal after going 21-12 with a Southern Conference tournament semifinal appearance in 2023-24, Earl’s second season as head coach.
Three of those transfers came from D-II programs, with the highlight addition in that group forward Frank Champion (6-7, 220), a two-time All-American who averaged 17.6 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists at the University of North Georgia in 2023-24. The other D-II transfers were all-conference performers for their previous programs, with versatile wing Garrison Keeslar (6-7, 205) coming from Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio, and guard Jack Kostel (6-2, 185) coming from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The Mocs also added two more D-I transfers in forward Adam Larson (6-9, 180), who came from Southeast Missouri State, and guard Bash Wieland (6-6, 215), who was the leading scorer last season at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. UTC defeated both of those programs last November at McKenzie Arena, with Larson starting and scoring 13 points and grabbing three rebounds while shooting 4-for-6 from 3-point range in the Redhawks’ 72-56 loss, while Wieland tallied four points, two rebounds, two assists and a steal in 27 minutes in the Knights’ 72-64 loss.
Champion, Keeslar, Kostel and Wieland are entering their final college season, while Larson and Richards have two years of eligibility left.
Joining UTC from the high school ranks are forwards Latif Diouf (6-9, 240) and Isaiah Otyaluk (6-7, 175), plus walk-on guard Parker Robison (6-0, 175) from Chattanooga, who was a team captain at McCallie.
The new group joins returning All-SoCon guards Trey Bonham and Honor Huff, as well as sophomore guard Noah Melson and redshirt freshmen forwards Sean Cusano and Collin Mulholland.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.
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