The Southern Conference will host its 2024 Football Media Day on Tuesday, July 23, at the Hotel Hartness in Greenville, South Carolina. All nine league head coaches and two student-athletes from each school will be on hand to meet with the media and preview the upcoming season.
Second-year SoCon Commissioner Michael Cross will address the media and all attendees following the event’s luncheon at 1 p.m. SoCon Associate Commissioner for Brand Strategy and Broadcast Dave Friedman conducted one-on-one interviews with the league’s head coaches, and those interviews are slated to be released on the conference’s website and social media platforms beginning at 10 a.m.
eastern tomorrow, July 23. A team-by-team schedule is below.
The league’s preseason all-conference teams and polls will be unveiled at the event, which will also see head coaches Tre Lamb of ETSU and Mike Jacobs of Mercer make their SoCon Media Day debuts.
Five of the nine SoCon programs appeared in the national rankings at some point last season, with Furman finishing in the top 10 of both the AFCA and Stats Perform polls. The Paladins, who won their first SoCon title in five seasons in 2023, finished sixth in the AFCA poll and seventh in the Stats Perform poll and earned the No. 7 national seed in the NCAA Division I Football Championship. Mercer and Chattanooga also finished the season ranked in both polls, while Western Carolina concluded the season No. 23 in the Stats Perform poll. Samford spent multiple weeks in both polls during last season.
The SoCon had three finalists for the Walter Payton Award and two for the Buck Buchanan Award last season. Western Carolina quarterback Cole Gonzales, the reigning Roy M. “Legs” Hawley Offensive Player of the Year as voted on by SoCon media members, finished 17th in the Payton voting last year.
The Southern Conference enters the 2024 campaign seeking its ninth FCS title. The league’s eight are the second-most all-time in the subdivision.