His final season has an unfinished look to it, like a Christmas tree without a star on top, but Rich Lackner still goes out a winner.
The longtime football coach at Carnegie Mellon was announced Monday as the American Football Coaches Association Region 2 Coach of the Year, making him a finalist for the association’s top coach in the nation.
It is the first time Lackner has received such an accolade by the AFCA, but it also will be the last as he pulls the curtain down after 36 years on the sidelines.
He finished with a record of 234-125-2 and is tied for the third-most victories among active Division III coaches.
This season, CMU finished 8-2 and shared the Presidents’ Athletic Conference title with Westminster. The Tartans defeated Case Western Reserve, 24-6, in the 35th Academic Bowl and advanced to the NCAA Division III playoffs only to be stymied by circumstances that were mostly out of their control.
News that several team members tested positive for covid-19 broke the day before a first-round game against to-ranked North Central College (10-0).
Carnegie Mellon was forced to withdraw from the 32-team tournament and the game was stamped as a no contest.
Lackner led the Tartans to win over a pair of Top-25 teams in Westminster and Washington & Jefferson en route to the program’s first conference title since 1989.
The AFCA will announce its national coaches of the year on Jan. 10. Lackner will be in the running for the Division III award.
