If multiple reports are correct, Mississippi Valley State is set to hire former Jackson State head football coach Rick Comegy.
Rob Jay of Jackson television station WLBT reported Sunday that Comegy will be the new head coach at MVSU. A couple of other media members have tweeted that they have sources to confirm the report.
Valley has not made an announcement regarding the new football coach, but Maxine Greenleaf, director of communications and marketing, said this morning the school would send out information this afternoon about an upcoming press conference.
Comegy was fired at JSU in mid-December after leading J-State to the last two Southwestern Athletic Conference championship games and had a 55-35 record in eight seasons.
His tenure with the Tigers was troubled at times, including the team’s 2011 ban from the postseason due to its poor NCAA Academic Progress Rate scores.
Comegy, 60, was previously the head coach at Tuskegee University in Alabama where he went 90-26 in 10 seasons.
He would replace Karl Morgan, whose contract was not renewed after he compiled an 8-35 record in four seasons, including 2-9 this past season.
According to reports from the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Comegy was paid about $200,000 this season. He is expected to take a pretty big pay cut at Valley, which was paying Morgan about $75,000.
Mike Sands of Greenville television station WABG has tweeted that a source tells him Comegy will earn $130,000 a year in Itta Bena.
If Comegy does become the 16th head coach in MVSU’s 60-year history of football, he will have to adjust to having fewer resources than he did at JSU. In the most recent athletics spending data reported to the federal government, covering the 2011-12 academic year, only seven of 242 Division 1 (Bowl and Championship subdivisions combined) football-playing schools reported spending less than Valley’s $1.09 million. But all of those are in the Pioneer Football League conference, which does not award athletic scholarships.
The new Valley coach faces an uphill battle in turning around a losing program. History tells us that.
Valley has had only 14 winning seasons in 60 years of football, with four of those coming in the last 25 years.
