Source: Charlotte to hire Austin Peay's Will Healy as next football coach

Austin Peay coach Will Healy is in line to be the next head coach at Charlotte according to a source with direct knowledge of the hire. He’s expected to agree to a five-year contract today, pending board approval. Healy, 33, will be one of the youngest coaches in college football next season and comes from an unconventional mold.

The Athletic first reported the expected move.

Healy is considered an elite recruiter, communicator and program promoter, cut from the energetic CEO mold of Dabo Swinney and P.J. Fleck. At Austin Peay, Healy thrust his focus much more on recruiting and advocating for the program than X’s and O’s, famously managing to bring in the country’s No. 1 ranked FCS recruiting class in the wake of an 0-11 debut season in 2016. Healy rebounded the next year to go 8-4, a season that saw Austin Peay snap a 29-game losing streak and finish 7-1 in the Ohio Valley Conference. Austin Peay went just 5-6 this season, which makes his hire a bit of a surprise.

Healy comes from an unconventional path, which makes the hire so intriguing. He got hired at Austin Peay in 2016 despite never calling a play or holding a full coordinator title. During his time as a player at Richmond, he played for both Mike London and Dave Clawson, who both went on to ACC head coaching jobs at Virginia and Wake Forest.

Healy’s style is one of relentless positivity. Yahoo Sports followed him for a weekend earlier this season when Austin Peay played Georgia, and Healy acknowledged he’s different. He holds his players accountable for good manners, preaching gratitude, proper handshake etiquette and picking up trash on the bus. He’s the antithesis of the old-school coach singularly focused on gap fits and route depth.

“I don’t mind being different,” Healy told Yahoo in August. “I think we hold our players accountable, but you don’t have to cuss ’em up one leg and down the other to do it.”

Healy is the second signature hire for new athletic director Mike Hill at Charlotte. Earlier this year, he hired assistant coach Ron Sanchez, the top assistant basketball coach at Virginia, from Tony Bennett’s coaching tree. This hire comes in the wake of James Madison coach Mike Houston being offered the job, being reported to expecting to take it and then backing out. Houston is now expected to be the head coach at East Carolina.

Charlotte regrouped and moved to Healy, who was high up on their original list, as his ability to create buzz about the moribund program at Austin Peay was intriguing to the Charlotte brass who crave the program to be better ingratiated into the city.

Charlotte fired coach Brad Lambert, who finished 22-48, in mid-November. Lambert had started the 49ers program in 2011. The program has been in Conference USA as a football member since 2015.

Healy will bring a fresh energy to the program and city. He joked to Yahoo that at his first team meeting at Austin Peay, the players looked at him like, “Who is this 12-year-old?” That same 12-year-old will be one of the intriguing new young faces in FBS football.

“He gets it, it’s the new model, the true CEO and not just an X’s and O’s guy,” Austin Peay athletic director Gerald Harrison told Yahoo in August. “He has a rare passion for the student-athlete and the ability to understand the whole picture.”