Northwestern State University of Louisiana held a public press conference to announce Blaine McCorkle, the new head football coach for the 2024-2025 season, on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023 in the Donald G. Kelly Athletic Complex.
Director of athletics Kevin Bostian addressed the search for hiring the right candidate for the job, reaffirmed the decision to hire McCorkle and welcomed him and his family to NSU.
“The process was quick and deliberate, it was thorough and we had over 60 candidates for the position that ranged from D1 head coaches to D2 head coaches to power five assistant coaches,” he said. “As I mentioned this was a highly thought out position and we chose coach McCorkle from a great list of candidates.”
Bostian explained why he was the right candidate for the coaching position.
“As we went through the search process coach McCorkle possessed all the qualities that we had as a community,” he said. “I was looking for one of them being a head coach to turn around a program that hadn’t had a lot of success, obviously he did that during his last three years at Belhaven University, and showed clear progress and change within a program that hasn’t had that success.”
Bostian then introduced NSU’s 16th head football coach, who previously spent six years as the head coach at Belhaven University, where in his final three seasons McCorkle led the Blazers to a 24-7 overall record and earned three American Southwest Conference/USA South Coach of the Year awards after they had not won more than three games a season since 2013.
McCorkle acknowledged why he came to NSU.
“It’s truly an honor and a privilege to be here a part of the Northwestern State community, and personally this has been a 26 year long dream of mine to come back to the state of Louisiana, which I love dearly, as the division one football coach,” McCorkle said. “This is a dream come true today, but this is just the start.”
He clarified his background in coaching collegiate athletes.
“The biggest part of my career has been in Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) football with the six institutions — Delaware, Richmond, Liberty, Tennessee Tech, Chattanugo and UT Martin — before I went to Belhaven, so a lot of which attracted me to NSU was FCS being my comfort zone,” he said. “This is where I feel I fit the best because I’ve got the most time invested there. I love this level of football and I still think it has a lot of purity to it, while still playing at an extremely high level.”
McCorkle addressed meeting with the team the previous day as the new head coach.
“First of all, I had a chance to meet with the team yesterday and really enjoyed that, hopefully they felt we will do things differently and as a good thing,” he said. “First thing I said to them I want to share with all of you, the Northwestern State community, my condolences. We don’t want to forget what has happened, we don’t want to move on, but we want to move forward.”
McCorkle said the football staff should be in place soon.
“I don’t want to reveal any specific names yet, but I have three or four right now that should be here Monday. I have met with the entire existing staff and I appreciate them taking the time to sit down with me, that was one thing that was really important for me to do,” he said. “Being a college football coach is a calling not a job and I know the previous staff here put their heart and soul into this thing.”
He explained his expectations for the future of NSU football moving forward.
“I like a challenge, I’m a competitor and I like to compete at a high level and the fact that the success hasn’t been real good here lately inspires me,” McCorkle said. “It makes me want to come in here and see if I can do something other people haven’t been able to do.”
He also added that engaging students to build support for the team will be important for the next football season.
“Best way to engage students is to give them a good product on Saturday. I think it’s very important that our football players are a part of the campus community, if there are activities going on campus they should be present and be seen,” he said. “If you’re proud to be at Northwestern State, then you need to be proud of all Northwestern State and not just isolate yourself and play football.”
