Arizona State hires Southern Miss OC Chip Lindsey
Dec 10, 2015, 4:02 PM | Updated: Dec 11, 2015, 9:18 am
It appears there will be a Chip in charge of the offense in Tempe and it’s not Kelly.
Southern Miss offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Chip Lindsey will be the new offensive coordinator for Arizona State.
“Chip was our top priority when we put together our initial list of candidates, so I couldn’t be happier that Chip is joining our family,” head coach Todd Graham said in a statement. “Chip recently turned down an offer to be the head coach at Eastern Kentucky, and he’s made it very clear how excited he is to be coming to Tempe. Chip is an outstanding developer of quarterbacks and we have similar offensive philosophies as he worked for Gus Malzahn at Auburn in 2013. Chip has quickly established him as one of the top offensive minds in the nation, and I have no doubt he is going to do great things with our student-athletes.”
Lindsey was an offensive analyst for the 2013 national champion runner-up Auburn Tigers and was hired last season by Southern Miss. He joined Auburn after coaching for two years at Spain Park High School in Hoover, Ala.
Arizona State coach Todd Graham isn’t reaching outside his coaching tree with the hire. Lindsey spent his year at Auburn under head coach Gus Malzahn, who was offensive coordinator under Graham at Tulsa from 2007-08. Graham and Malzahn remain close.
Also on Graham’s Tulsa staff was Mike Norvell, ASU’s former offensive coordinator who left for the Memphis head coaching job a week ago. Norvell was Malzahn’s wide receivers coach.
Lindsey is credited for a quick turnaround at Southern Miss, which averaged 40.6 points per game this season, 12th-best in college football. In 2014, the Golden Eagles scored 19 points per game, which was 117th in the nation. While Lindsey was on that staff, head coach Todd Monken was the play-caller before delegating those duties to Lindsey for the 2015 season.
Lindsey, a native of Madison, Ala., played college football at the University of North Alabama but transferred as a student to earn his bachelor’s degree at Alabama.
