Stubbs signed to 3-year contract

Nicholls State Athletics Director Rob Bernardi believes the school’s football program is headed in the right direction.

He apparently wants to keep it that way.

Bernardi announced last Wednesday that the Colonels have given football head coach Charlie Stubbs a new three-year contract.

Financial terms were not disclosed and the contract is pending approval from the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System.

The move came on the first day of spring practice for the Colonels, which marked the official start to the coach’s second season with the program.

“We are extremely pleased with the progress our football program has made under the leadership of Charlie Stubbs,” Bernardi said in a release issued by the Colonels’ athletic department. “Coach Stubbs has demonstrated his ability to turn around a program and we would like to keep him here as our coach.”

Stubbs landed with the Colonels after close to two decades as an offensive coordinator with some of the most prominent programs in the country, including Alabama, Louisville, Oregon State and Tulsa – having offensive success at each stop.

In his first season as a head coach, Nicholls fielded a 4-7 record and suffered bumps and bruises throughout the course of the season.

Most importantly, the coach instilled a new level of discipline into the team, pushing students to work harder in practice and in the classroom.

From that, the Colonels have lifted their Academic Progress Rating (APR) to 969 – the highest mark in the history of the school since the APR was put in place.

The Colonels also had 30 players field a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

“I have my thumb on these guys. There’s times where I’ve had to do things to some of the players like not play them or to not dress them just to get some points across,” Stubbs said following the last game of the season. “It might have put us a weak football team out there some during the year, but I got the point across, which is we’re going to attend class, we’re going to go to study hall, we’re going to do those things. And once they realized, ‘Hey, this guy backs up what he says,’ everybody started lining up.”

The ‘lining up’ Stubbs talking about came as the season closed as Nicholls won two-straight games to end the season, beating rivals Northwestern State and Southeastern Louisiana.

The coach then took that momentum into the recruiting trail and hauled in a touted recruiting class that featured 17 prospects from Louisiana to join the team’s roster, which is glittered with returnees at virtually every position.

That combination of on-field and off-the-field success has Nicholls excited about the future.

Now, they can rest easier knowing that Stubbs will likely be a part of it for the foreseeable future.

“For Nicholls to have someone of Charlie Stubbs’ caliber in terms of experience, commitment to academics and knowledge of the game is a tremendous advantage to our student-athletes,” Nicholls State University President Dr. Stephen Hulbert said.

The coach agreed and added that with the future on more sturdy ground, it’s time to focus on winning championships – something the coach hasn’t shied away from talking about since his first day on the job.

“I have a vision for this program to compete at the championship level, both on the field and in the classroom,” Stubbs said. “With the signing of this contract, it brings stability to our present football program and our future recruiting endeavors.”