tHE oHIO vALLEY coNFERENCE's uNIVERSITY OF tENNESSEE-mARTIN sKYHAWKS
The University of Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks are members of the Ohio Valley Conference. The Ohio Valley Conference, a Division I FCS Conference headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. The conference operates in the Midwestern and Southeastern portion of the United States. The conference has a total of 12 members, and only nine of them play football. Those schools are Austin Peay State University, Belmont University, Eastern Illinois University, Eastern Kentucky University, Jacksonville State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Southeast Missouri State University, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University, and the University of Tennessee-Martin. All schools participate in football in the OVC with the exception of Belmont University, Morehead State University, and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.
The Skyhawks have won the Ohio Valley Conference Football Championship one time previously, in 2006, when they lost in the first round of the FCS playoffs.
The Skyhawks have won the Ohio Valley Conference Football Championship one time previously, in 2006, when they lost in the first round of the FCS playoffs.
Jason Simpson, Tennessee-Martin HEad Football Coach/Assistant Athletic Director
Head Football Coach/Assistant Athletic Director University of Tennessee-Martin The longest tenured head football coach in the Ohio Valley Conference is Jason Simpson, who has transformed the University of Tennessee at Martin program into one of the winningest teams in the OVC since his first season in 2006. In 10 years, Simpson has led UT Martin to a 65-49 record (.570 winning percentage) and a 51-30 mark against OVC opponents (.630 winning percentage). That comes after the program had won 20 OVC games in its first 14 seasons in the league. He also has presided over 67 All-OVC players after the program tallied 33 such players in its first 14 seasons in the OVC. Simpson's 65 career victories rank ninth in OVC history while his 51 conference wins come in at eighth place in league history. Three of the program's seven 8-win seasons have come under Simpson, including all three at the Football Championship Subdivision level. He was responsible for the program's first-ever OVC championship team in 2006, as that team ended the season with a national No. 13 ranking after finishing 9-3. Simpson placed fourth in the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award ballot in 2006 and was also a finalist for the award in 2012. He won the OVC's Roy Kidd Coach of the Year award and the American Football Coaches Association Region 3 Coach of the Year accolade in 2006, his debut season at UT Martin. The Skyhawks have also won or shared the Sgt. Alvin C. York Trophy, which was established in 2007 and is given annually to the best of the four OVC teams located in Tennessee. The Skyhawks won the trophy in 2010 and shared it in 2012 before reclaiming the trophy in 2014 and defending it in 2015. UT Martin owns a 19-8 all-time record in the Sgt. York Trophy series, which is the best mark out of the four OVC schools. On top of defending the Sgt. York Trophy once again, the Skyhawks continued their climb atop the OVC rankings once again in 2015, finishing third with a conference mark of 6-2 while finishing the season at 7-4 overall despite facing a pair of FBS opponents in Ole Miss and Arkansas. Faced with one of the toughest schedules in the country, Simpson led his team to be one of the top offensive threats around while receiving votes in both polls for nine consecutive weeks to close out the regular season. The Skyhawks ranked first in the OVC and 16th in the country in third down conversion percentage while ranking in the top-15 nationally in passing offense (11th, 293.5 ypg), red zone offense (13th, 86.8%), scoring offense (13th, 35.5 ppg) and total offense (14th, 456.6 ypg). Source: http://www.utmsports.com/coach.cfm?id=110&sport= |