Coastal Carolina finalizes football support and recruiting staff ahead of 2026 season

CONWAY, S.C. – Coastal Carolina has completed a broad reshaping of its football infrastructure, with head coach Ryan Beard, hired from Missouri State following the 2025 season, confirming a slate of additions and promotions across operations, analysts and recruiting. The moves complete the Chanticleers’ off-field structure for the 2026 campaign and place program alumni alongside experienced operators from multiple Division I stops.

Operations backbone strengthened

The reorganization starts with day-to-day governance of the program. Max Franey arrives as Chief of Staff and Associate Athletic Director of Football Administration after leading football operations at Missouri State, where he worked under Beard in a similar capacity. His remit spans team logistics, travel, scheduling and daily operations – the operational decisions that shape how the program responds to institutional priorities around academics, player welfare and compliance with NCAA rules. Franey previously directed football operations and equipment at Gardner-Webb, completed an operations internship at Tulsa and worked in Missouri State’s athletics department while finishing graduate studies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in administrative management (2022) and an MBA leadership certificate (2023), both from Missouri State.

Former Coastal long snapper CJ Schrimpf is promoted to Director of Football Operations, providing a campus-based counterpart with deep familiarity with Coastal’s internal processes. He has served the program since 2023, first as a volunteer and then as coordinator of player development and operations beginning in July 2024. As a player (2018-21), Schrimpf received third-team All-Sun Belt recognition by Phil Steele in 2021, was on the 2021 Patrick Mannelly Award watch list and earned selection to the 2022 NFF Hampshire Honor Society. He holds Coastal degrees in communication and in recreation and sport management.

Analyst unit adds experience on both sides of the ball

On offense, Hunter Crabtree joins as Offensive Senior Analyst following roles at Missouri State that included quality control (2025) and graduate assistant/video coordinator (2024), where he supported game planning, film breakdown and video operations. His role at Coastal will focus on advance scouting, opponent self-scout and data-informed recommendations that can be integrated into weekly game plans under staff size limitations.

The defensive think-tank adds three staffers, further professionalizing how Coastal structures scheme evaluation and practice planning. Dalton Franks becomes Defensive Senior Analyst after two seasons at Missouri State, where he also served as director of on-campus recruiting. In 2024, the Bears’ defense led the Missouri Valley Football Conference in sacks per game, ranked among the league leaders in tackles for loss, and produced 12 interceptions and 20 total takeaways. Prior stops include coaching the defensive line and safeties at Missouri Western State, quality control roles with multiple position groups at Stephen F. Austin and high school coaching in Texas. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Stephen F. Austin State University.

Defensive Analyst Austin Gilbert worked with defensive tackles as a graduate assistant and defensive quality control coach at Missouri State in 2025, after graduate assistant duties at Charlotte (2023-25) and a student assistant stint at Michigan (2020-23). His experience also includes a training camp internship with the Kansas City Chiefs and data work with Pro Football Focus. He holds a dual degree in sport management and economics from Michigan.

Defensive Analyst Austin Westbrook was a graduate assistant for defensive backs at Missouri State in 2025. He played collegiately at Faulkner University (bachelor’s in sports management) and pursued a master’s degree in kinesiology with a concentration in sport management at Northern Illinois University.

On special teams, Carter Barnard joins as Special Teams Analyst following a graduate assistant role at Missouri State in 2025. He previously played safety at Oklahoma State in the Big 12, adding Power Five playing experience to the room tasked with field position and hidden-yardage strategy.

Program alumni embedded in the offensive room

Two of the most recognizable recent Chanticleers return in off-field roles for 2026, aligning the new staff with the program’s recent competitive peak.

Offensive Analyst Trey Carter, an offensive line mainstay during his playing career, holds the school records for games played (61) and starts (61) and was a three-time team captain from 2019-21. He served as interim offensive line coach for the 2025 Independence Bowl and previously worked as an offensive graduate assistant at Liberty and at Coastal. His presence links the current roster to the blocking schemes and standards that underpinned Coastal’s rise into the national conversation earlier in the decade.

Offensive Analyst Grayson McCall, among the most decorated players in program history, remains on staff after joining in 2025. McCall was a three-time Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year (2020-22) and finished his Coastal career as the school’s all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, completion percentage and total offense. He served as interim tight ends coach during the 2025 postseason. In his current role, McCall is expected to translate his experience as a starting quarterback into film-room leadership and installation support for Beard’s offensive system.

Recruiting and personnel department consolidated

General Manager Scott Aligo enters a second season after becoming the program’s first GM in early 2025, a structure that mirrors the front-office model increasingly adopted across major college football. He oversees roster management, personnel and scouting, drawing on experience from Kansas-where the program posted consecutive bowl appearances and returned to national rankings during his tenure-and prior personnel leadership roles at Michigan State, Akron, Chattanooga and John Carroll, plus more than seven years in NFL scouting with Kansas City and Cleveland.

Logan Armstrong becomes Director of Player Personnel after a 2025 stint at Oklahoma as a scouting coordinator and earlier roles at Tulsa that progressed from defensive/recruiting intern to director of player personnel and recruiting in 2023. He began coaching at Owasso High School in 2021 and previously assisted at Oklahoma in 2019. Armstrong competed in collegiate baseball at Eastern Oklahoma State College and Murray State College and earned a business administration and finance degree from Oklahoma in 2020.

Ace Wales steps in as Director of Scouting after coaching running backs at Missouri State in 2025 and contributing to a high-output backfield there in 2024. His background includes a 2023 season at Louisville (10 wins, ACC Championship Game appearance and a bowl victory) and prior recruiting and quality control roles at Western Kentucky, plus high school coaching in Kentucky. Wales played at Western Kentucky, earning All-Conference USA honors and appearing on the Doak Walker Award watch list, and holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from WKU.

Continuity remains with Director of On-Campus Recruiting Braelyn Yown and Coordinator of Scouting Chris Parrott both returning to their roles, giving Coastal institutional memory in the day-to-day management of unofficial visits, official-visit weekends and on-campus events that feed into scholarship and roster decisions.

Why the structure matters for Coastal’s 2026 campaign

These appointments centralize day-to-day operations, expand film and game-planning capacity, and formalize a modern personnel department-key components for a program competing in the Sun Belt Conference. Dedicated analysts help translate weekly scouting into install-ready plans within staff and time limits set by the NCAA, while a general manager model and specialized scouting roles are designed to streamline evaluation across high school pipelines and four-year transfers at a time when roster movement is increasingly governed by the transfer portal and evolving eligibility rules.

Having former team captains Trey Carter and Grayson McCall in the offensive room connects current players with institutional knowledge and scheme continuity, giving Beard’s staff credible internal voices as it implements new systems. Operationally, Franey and Schrimpf’s backgrounds in travel, scheduling and player support are intended to reduce friction around practice, recovery and academic windows-areas that can influence weekly availability and preparation time over a long season and that sit at the intersection of athletic ambition and university policy.

Staff at a glance

• Chief of Staff: Max Franey
• Director of Football Operations: CJ Schrimpf
• Offensive Senior Analyst: Hunter Crabtree
• Defensive Senior Analyst: Dalton Franks
• Defensive Analyst: Austin Gilbert
• Defensive Analyst: Austin Westbrook
• Special Teams Analyst: Carter Barnard
• Offensive Analyst: Trey Carter
• Offensive Analyst: Grayson McCall
• General Manager: Scott Aligo
• Director of Player Personnel: Logan Armstrong
• Director of Scouting: Ace Wales
• Director of On-Campus Recruiting: Braelyn Yown
• Coordinator of Scouting: Chris Parrott

The completed structure gives Coastal Carolina a clearer division of responsibilities across game preparation, player development and roster building as the program turns fully toward 2026, aligning an overhauled football operation with the wider governance and competitive pressures facing modern college athletics.