November 18, 2005
Pannunzio fired at Murray State
The Murray State Racers have fired head coach Joe Pannunzio today. The team finished 2-9 for the season, which ended Thursday with a loss to Tennessee-Martin. The Racers were winless in the Ohio Valley Conference. Pannunzio was 30-37 over his six years at Murray State, including an OVC title in 2002. Pannunzio was previously an assistant coach at Auburn and Ole Miss under Tommy Tuberville.
A statement from Murray State AD Allen Ward:
After taking the time to carefully evaluate our football program this season, I feel it is best at this time to move in a new direction. I sincerely want to thank Coach Pannunzio for his service to the university, and I wish him the very best in his future coaching endeavors.In light of the struggles we have had on the field this year, I felt the recommendation to not renew Coach Pannunzio's contract is the only one I could make at this point. It is unfortunate that we could not have been more successful this season, which might have allowed me to consider other factors more extensively before making my recommendation.
I intend to move quickly to hire a new coach in order to give him as much time as possible to assemble his staff and begin recruiting. However, my top priority is to get the best possible coach for Murray State University.
Comments:
Jim Manderfeld said:
posted on November 20, 2005 12:56 PM — 205.188.116.199 — link — abuse?
Remember Joe from his days as a coach for the
Minnesota Golden Gophers. Sure hope there is some way we could get him back to do something if not
best wishes to him.
You folks must have a great program there if
there is no room for a chap like Coach Pannunzio.GoRacers said:
posted on July 4, 2006 7:41 PM — 67.171.47.23 — link — abuse?
there is room for pannunzio, but not at murray state.
murray state was coming off the greatest few seasons in school history under houston nutt, currently at arkansas. we had undefeated seasons one after another, and then nutt left.denver johnson came in, and was obviously an inferior coach. we began our journey in to mediocrity, finding complacency in 8-3 seasons and 7-4 seasons. pannunzio came in, and nothing changed for the better. 2-9 is where murray state was at before, not where they wanted to go.
good riddance, joe p.
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VOLPIMP said:
posted on November 18, 2005 8:28 PM — 208.0.27.10 — link — abuse?Wow a Tennessee team helped get a coach fired! Go Skyhawks! They have a corner that worked for me part time last spring, he's holding it down for those guys, Jason Coleman from the ATL. Maybe he'll get a shot.