South Alabama has elevated offensive coordinator Major Applewhite to head coach, it announced Thursday.
Applewhite has spent each of the past three seasons as offensive coordinator of the Jaguars program.
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“I’m incredibly humbled and excited to be the next head football coach at the University of South Alabama,” Applewhite stated in a release. “My family and I love living in Mobile, and are thankful for the opportunity to further ingrain ourselves in the community here. I’m grateful to Kane Wommack for bringing me here three years ago, and I look forward to carrying on the winning tradition that has been established. I’m excited to work with the strong and proven leadership of the administration here at South Alabama. I’m anxious to get started and quickly turn my attention back to our players, and prepare them for spring ball and the 2024 season.”
South Alabama set a new program record with 430 points scored last season, all under Applewhite’s tutelage.
Applewhite also brings two years experience as head coach at Houston. Prior to that, he was an analyst under Nick Saban at Alabama where he was part of the team that won the College Football Playoff National Championship in 2020.
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Applewhite has also served as offensive coordinator at Texas in addition to working as quarterbacks coach at Syracuse.
“Following a broad evaluation of our program, it became very clear that the best leader for us in both the short and long term is Major Applewhite,” South Alabama athletics director Joel Erdmann stated in a release. “His professional experience, his string of mentors along his path and his proven ability to recruit, develop and sustain relationships with student-athletes were all significant contributing factors to this decision. I am incredibly excited about our future, and can’t wait to work together with coach Applewhite as we continue to move this program forward.”
