STATESBORO — Georgia Southern head football coach Tyson Summers announced Wednesday his 2016 coaching staff, his first staff at the helm of the Eagles. The new hires have been a part of three national championships, seven conference titles, four state titles, 15 bowl teams and 14 NCAA playoff squads.

The staff will include: Pat Bastien, linebackers; Lorenzo “Zo” Costantini, defensive coordinator; David Dean, co-offensive coordinator/wide receivers; Chris Foster, running backs; Rance Gillespie, co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks; Jimmy Lindsey, defensive line; Chad Lunsford, tight ends/special-teams coordinator; Allen Mogridge, offensive line; Jeremy Rowell defensive backs; Travis Taylor, director of football operations; Steve Dennis, director of football administration; Chris Ball, video coordinator; and Dr. Tredell Dorsey, director of strength and conditioning.

Lunsford, who served as the Eagles’ recruiting coordinator and tight-ends coach the past two seasons, has agreed to return to the staff for an eighth season, his fourth in his current stint at Georgia Southern.
Bastien comes to Statesboro from Central Florida, where he was a defensive graduate assistant the previous two seasons. Costantini was as the defensive line coach for UCF.

Dean won two NCAA Division II national titles during his nine years as head coach at Valdosta State. The Eagles also mined Valdosta to get Gillespie, who won 49 games in six seasons as head coach at Valdosta High School.

Foster comes to Georgia Southern from Maryville College in Tennessee, where he spent the 2015 season as a running backs coach. Lindsey was defensive-line coach at Furman for four seasons prior to arriving in Statesboro, while Mogridge was most recently the offensive-line coach at UCF.

Rowell was defensive coordinator at Colquitt County High School the past three seasons, a run that included two Class AAAAAA state titles.
Dennis comes to GSU after being the director of athletics for seven years at Troy, Dorsey spent the past four years as assistant director of strength and conditioning at UCF, and Taylor was assistant director of football operations at Western Kentucky the last two seasons.

All hires are pending final approval.