Sam Houston Fires Phil Longo After a 3-17 Run, Less Than a Day After a 24-3 Loss Drops the Bearkats to 1-7
The Huntsville program made its change Wednesday afternoon: Phil Longo is out after 20 games - 3-17 overall, one Conference USA win, the league's worst offense - and two assistants take over as interim co-head coaches for the trip to Jacksonville State on November 7.
Sam Houston has fired head coach Phil Longo, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Wednesday afternoon - less than 24 hours after the Bearkats were beaten 24-3 by Missouri State and fell to 1-7 on the season. The decision ends a 20-game stretch in which Sam Houston went 3-17 and won just one Conference USA game: 2-10 in 2025 and 1-7 so far in 2026, with a 1-11 record in league play.
The numbers underneath the record were as stark. Under Longo, the offense ranked last in Conference USA in both scoring and average yards per game, and the program looked to be taking steps backward while still adjusting to the FBS level - a climb made harder by a 2025 season played with no true home games because of stadium renovations.
Longo's return to Huntsville in December 2024 was supposed to be a homecoming with a track record: he had been the Bearkats' offensive coordinator from 2014 to 2016, when Sam Houston won the Southland Conference twice and reached No. 1 in the FCS rankings, before coordinating stints at Ole Miss, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Instead, the second act lasted 20 games.
Associate head coach and special teams coordinator Eric Raisbeck and defensive coordinator Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay will serve as interim co-head coaches for the rest of the season. The Bearkats begin the new era on the road, visiting Jacksonville State on November 7.
