The head coach who led Gardner-Webb football to back-to-back FCS playoff appearances the past two seasons is on the move.
East Tennessee State announced on Monday that Tre Lamb will be its next head coach. Lamb was first hired by Gardner-Webb in December 2019.
His 2022 squad won the Big South Conference championship and advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs. This year’s team rallied from a 2-4 start to win its last five games and capture the Big South/OVC title. Gardner-Webb lost to Mercer 17-7 in Saturday’s FCS playoff opening round.
Lamb has plenty of Tennessee ties. He graduated from Tennessee Tech and played quarterback for the Golden Eagles from 2009-12. He also served as an offensive assistant at Tennessee Tech. His other coaching stint came as quarterbacks coach at Mercer.
Lamb, 34, is among the youngest head coaches in all of Division I football. Lamb was recently announced as a finalist for the Eddie Robinson Award, the national coach of the year honor given at the FCS level.
“I am very excited that Tre Lamb is going to lead our program into the future,” Dr. Richard Sander, ETSU director of athletics said in a statement released by the school. “We completed a very extensive and wide-ranging search. The amount of interest spoke volumes about what very successful coaches think about the potential of ETSU football. As we vetted candidates and talked to people in the inner circle of college football, it became very clear that Tre Lamb was one the most exciting, young successful coaches in the country.
“For me, it was extremely important to have someone with successful head coaching experience and who knows how to recruit at our level and be able to navigate the transfer portal. Coach Lamb has done both. He checks every box that I created when I was developing the right profile. Everybody needs to get on board because great things are ahead for ETSU football.”
