INSTITUTE, W.Va. – The course for a successful 2024 football season has been charted by eighth-year West Virginia State University Head Coach John Pennington. He held his first spring practice this past Tuesday, March 26 and has laid out the path towards the culmination of spring ball on April 26 with the annual Black and Gold game. Pennington bolstered his coaching staff in the offseason with new hires and promotions from within.

"I am excited to announce some of our new coaches," said Pennington. "We have been fortunate to have great coaches who have moved up while we continue to upgrade our coaching staff with our most recent hires. Starting with our new Offensive Coordinator and Play Caller, Rahman Lee. Coach Lee has been with WVSU for two seasons and is a great offensive coach with previous coordinating experience. He has proven over the last two years that he's ready to lead our offense to new heights and has already shown great leadership with the offense throughout this winter offseason. 

"On offense, we also added a new offensive line coach, Caleb Muxlow. Coach Mux played center at Concordia and spent the last year as a graduate assistant at Charleston Southern. He came highly recommended from their staff. He is a great young coach who understands offensive line play and the physical nature of the position.

"We also hired a new Strength and Conditioning Coordinator, Deondre Boggs. Coach Debo was the S&C Coordinator at Judson College in Illinois and has experience at the Division I level at Louisville and Northwestern. Coach Debo did an incredible job this winter getting our team ready for spring practice and has already made a noticeable difference in our players. 

"On defense, we are excited to bring back Kenan Johnson to our staff as Outside Linebacker Coach and Assistant Head Coach. Kenan was a graduate assistant at North Carolina State for the past two years under Tony Gibson and brings a lot of new knowledge back to his alma mater to ramp up our outside linebacker room. We've also added two graduate assistants who played with us last season, Christian Thompson and Taizhun Chisolm.

"More than anything, this staff has really gelled together and we were able to add a lot of expertise in certain areas to maximize our student-athletes' abilities. With Coach Lee taking over as the offensive coordinator and play caller, I will be able to focus more on the leadership and overall process of our football program, while continuing to coach the quarterbacks. We look forward to a successful spring practice schedule and we are always open to coaches coming to visit our practices."



West Virginia State's slate of games for the 2024 season was released by the Mountain East Conference on Thursday. The MEC will play a nine-game conference schedule with each team playing two additional contests against non-conference competition in 2024. The Yellow Jackets scheduled Barton College and Carson-Newman for their two non-conference contests.

WVSU will release a complete schedule with game times when available. In addition, the MEC and its member institutions will announce a Thursday night game schedule later in the summer.