“I love our team,” he said. “Our football facility is second to none. It’s better than anywhere else I’ve been, to be honest with you. A lot of parents will sit in my office on recruiting trips and they’ll say we had no idea that this place looked like this.

“The thing I always tell our recruits is that if you’re serious about playing football and getting your degree, this is a great place to come.”

With that said, Lindsey has seen three pivotal players from last year’s team enter the transfer portal – linebacker Tron Folsom, defensive back/return specialist Marcus Jones and quarterback Sawyer Smith, who just announced his intentions to leave the team on Tuesday.

Smith, a rising junior, took over as the starter the final seven games of last season after Kaleb Barker went down with a season-ending knee injury. Smith, Barker, Gunnar Watson, Jacob Free and Gavin Screws were all expected to battle for the starting job during fall camp.

“Sawyer is going to graduate with his degree in the summer, and basically his deal is he wants the opportunity to be the starter for two years,” Lindsey said. “I could guarantee him he could compete for the job in the fall, but I couldn’t guarantee him he was going to be the starter. We had been going through this for about a week.