2023 Charlotte 49ers

[Phall]

Since 2015, Charlotte has started 7, 5, 5, 5, 6, 4, 6, and 6 white athletes. In 2023, they look to start 6 again.

The 49ers are a pretty standard southern caste team with a couple of white starters on defense. (I wrote this same sentence last year.) The team brought in two transfer black quarterbacks to replace last year’s white starter and currently projects to start 15 transfer players.

Biff Poggi will start his first full season as head coach after a lengthy career that most recently includes a stint as an assistant at Michigan. He brings along two Wolverines transfers, including stud defensive lineman Julius Welschof. Welschof is a physical freak from Germany with wild measurables. He tweaked his position several times in Ann Arbor but never nailed down playing time. I’ll be interested to see what he can finally do when given snaps.

The other most-intriguing player is true sophomore Maguire Neal, who will start for the second year at “nickel back” in the 4-2-5 base defense. His backup is also white.

Slot receiver Jake Hestera is a redshirt sophomore transfer from Colorado and will be looking to show up Deion Sanders for running him off the team.

Punt return duties aren’t finalized but could go to one of the white receivers.

Starters:
WR/Slot: Jack Hestera
TE: Jake Clemons
OC: Andrew Adair
OG: Jonny King

DE: Julius Welschof
NB: Maguire Neal

Backups:
QB: Carson Black (third string true freshman)
WR: Sean Brown, Jack Reynolds, Manning Lasso
TE: Gus McGee, Colin Weber, Bryce Kennon
OT: Jasper Parks, Lucas Gramlick

LB: Reid Williford
NB: Marcus Robitaille

 

[Leonardfan]

Looks like WR Nolan Groulx has disappeared from the college football landscape.

 

[Phall]

Looks like WR Nolan Groulx has disappeared from the college football landscape.

Yep, no mention of him on the roster anymore, no active social media, and no news coverage. I didn't recognize him apart from typing his name last year, but apparently Nolan played football and baseball for Wake Forest, even switching positions midseason from receiver to cornerback, starting three games there to fill in for an injured backfield before transferring to Charlotte.

It's possible that he "retired" from college sports after finishing undergrad since he enrolled in 2019. As far as eligibility though, he still seems to have had a redshirt senior year and a covid year to play. Charlotte football has virtually zero online fandom - I couldn't even find a puff piece on Welschof or Maguire Neal.

Nolan's younger brother Liam is apparently walking onto Michigan as a linebacker.

 

[Leonardfan]

Yep, no mention of him on the roster anymore, no active social media, and no news coverage. I didn't recognize him apart from typing his name last year, but apparently Nolan played football and baseball for Wake Forest, even switching positions midseason from receiver to cornerback, starting three games there to fill in for an injured backfield before transferring to Charlotte.

It's possible that he "retired" from college sports after finishing undergrad since he enrolled in 2019. As far as eligibility though, he still seems to have had a redshirt senior year and a covid year to play. Charlotte football has virtually zero online fandom - I couldn't even find a puff piece on Welschof or Maguire Neal.

Nolan's younger brother Liam is apparently walking onto Michigan as a linebacker.

I did a quick search for him as well. He was a pretty highly touted recruit, too bad things did not work out for him. Thanks again for taking such a large number of teams this year. Pretty amazing that Charlotte has 15 transfer players projected to start.

 

[Phall]

I did a quick search for him as well. He was a pretty highly touted recruit, too bad things did not work out for him. Thanks again for taking such a large number of teams this year. Pretty amazing that Charlotte has 15 transfer players projected to start.

You're very welcome re: teams. I probably got carried away, but it's a pretty simple process, especially when I did the team myself a year prior. Sometimes I wish there was more substance to add, but plenty of these teams don't even have a school newspaper covering them in any detail. Too busy with their LGBTQI+ op-eds, probably.

Colorado got the press attention, but yeah, Charlotte is right up there with its obscene amount of transfers. Do alumni watch these mercenaries and swell with school pride?

I didn't bother learning Biff Poggi's whole lore when he was an analyst at Michigan. His son Henry was a battering ram fullback for the Wolverines in 2017; Biff coached a competitive high school team near Baltimore and was known as an eccentric. He was never even a positions coach, let alone coordinator in college. Apparently, he was a big behind-the-scenes help to Harbaugh's staff in terms of recruiting organization, among other things. At age 63, he was happy to take his first crack at coaching college ball with a crappy team. Obviously, he started with a lot of "housekeeping."