Chad Lunsford promoted to full-time head coach at Georgia Southern

It was announced on Monday afternoon that Georgia Southern had promoted long-time assistant and current interim head coach Chad Lunsford to full-time status.

Lunsford is coming off of a two-game winning streak in which the Eagles have really gotten its act together, in a blowout of South Alabama and a 10-point victory over a middling UL-Lafayette team this past Saturday.

The new head coach will lead the team into its season finale this weekend, when the Eagles face off against a seriously struggling Coastal Carolina squad.

Lunsford will replace former coach and boss Tyson Summers, who Southern cut bait with after an embarrassing loss to UMass on Oct. 21.

In that time, the team has slowly but surely improved each week, with everything coming together at the right time on Nov. 18 in a 52-0 drubbing of a South Alabama team that had just defeated Arkansas State.

The only question remains: How will this team fare against the top of the conference when the season kicks off in 2018? The team dropped games to Troy, Georgia State and Appalachian State in three consecutive weeks under Lunsford’s watch, although how much of that can be chalked up to undoing Summers’ incompetence remains to be seen.

Either way, the players clearly love the guy:

Lunsford came on to Georgia Southern’s staff in 2003 under former coach Mike Sewak, and is currently in his ninth season as a coach of the Eagles, although non-consecutively.

This biggest question here remains, does the public at large support the hire?