Coastal Carolina

The teal turf is a real thing. Brooks Stadium's playing surface in Conway is a deliberate, disorienting visual — opponents see it, fans film it, and the Chanticleers own it as a home-field weapon, gimmick or not. The mascot is the Chanticleer, the proud rooster from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which is either a deeply literary choice for a coastal university or exactly the kind of flag-planting that a program building an identity from scratch needs to do. Coastal reclassified to FBS in 2017 and within three years was the sport's most delightful story — Jamey Chadwell's option-tinged, Grayson McCall-led Chanticleers stopping a BYU team's undefeated season on the teal, in a game scheduled days earlier, with the Stanford band energy of a program that knew exactly what it was doing.

The post-Chadwell chapter has been a slow drift. Tim Beck went 20-18 across three seasons that never recaptured the 2020 altitude, and the end was ugly: a 59-10 home loss to James Madison, a 51-7 loss at South Carolina, an Independence Bowl defeat, and Beck fired before the year finished. Ryan Beard — from Missouri State — is the fifth head coach in Conway. He arrives cold, inheriting a fanbase with a very specific reference point and a roster depleted by the portal.

The 2026 question is whether Coastal Carolina is a place or a coach. The faction that thinks the teal, Conway, and the Chanticleer identity are the reason for 2020 says yes, the magic is still there. The faction that thinks Jamey Chadwell was the entire variable says the program needs to build from something more durable than a moment. Beard's first year will at least establish which argument has more evidence.