Less than a week ago Samford was put in an extremely unfortunate position when head coach Bucky McMillan departed for the opening at Texas A&M. You can’t fault him for bolting for an SEC position, though leaving in early April with the Transfer Portal open left the Bulldogs in a tough position. Regardless, the program has come through with their next leader, tapping Lennie Acuff to that position.
A native Alabaman who was born in Huntsville, Acuff has been a collegiate head coach more than thirty years. Much of his experience came at lower levels, but he’s had quite a rise through this sport. After playing collegiately at Shorter, he had his earliest head coaching experience at the NAIA level at Belhaven and Berry before finding great success.
In 1997, Acuff accepted the head coaching gig at Alabama-Huntsville, returning to his home state for what would be a successful 22-year tenure at the D2 level. He’d win more than 450 games in his two decades leading the Chargers, taking the program on a myriad of D2 Tournaments, including five runs to the Sweet Sixteen or further in his final ten years.
After that great run, Acuff got his first shot at the D1 level when Lipscomb hired him back in 2019. At that time, the program was in fantastic shape under Casey Alexander, who had just crossed town to take over at rival Belmont. While there were some struggles in the initial seasons, Acuff gradually built something special with the Bisons.
After his third season, his record at Lipscomb was still under .500, but his next three years changed the momentum again. The Bisons would win at least 20 games in each of those seasons, culminating in this year’s success. Lipscomb tied for the ASUN regular season title, won the league tournament and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years.
The 60-year old is parlaying that success into the Samford job, taking over another mid-major program coming off recent breakthroughs. Even with McMillan gone to Texas A&M, there’s plenty of hope ahead for Samford as a result of this hire as that program looks to keep chasing crowns in a competitive SoCon.
Meanwhile, Lipscomb is cast into an unfortunate coaching search in the second week of April and risks losing a great number of their players from last season’s success. Acuff was a longtime D2 head coach who did wonders in Nashville; could the same formula work again for this program?