Karmello English let a fourth-quarter punt ricochet off him at the Coastal 38, Delaware's Colin Gallagher fell on it, and one play later Nick Minicucci threw a 36-yard touchdown to Sean Wilson, Delaware's only touchdown after halftime, and the margin in a 22-14 Coastal Carolina loss. Afterward Ryan Beard put the night on himself. The Chanticleers' coach said "penalties, turnovers, [mistakes] on special teams, that falls on the head coach."
He had a list to work from. Coastal fumbled four times and lost two, took five penalties for 30 yards, watched a holding call wipe out a touchdown run, and gave Delaware a two-point conversion by drawing a flag on the extra-point try that tied the game. Delaware did not turn the ball over once. The Chants led 14-7 in the second quarter and gained 253 yards before halftime, then went scoreless after it, stalling at the Delaware 13 on a failed fourth down with about four minutes left. That is a 1-2 team losing to itself, not a roster getting run off the field.
Quarterback play is not the problem. Deuce Bailey went 16-of-26 for 250 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. The week before, against Fordham, he threw for 203 yards and three scores to Colton Hinton, Robby Washington and Clayton Coppock. What Coastal fans should actually track Thursday is the back half. Bailey was 10-of-13 for 209 yards and both touchdowns in the first half at Delaware, and 6-of-13 for 41 yards after it, and he lost a fumble on a first-quarter sack.
The defense delivered half of what it needed. Coastal held Delaware to 93 rushing yards at 3.0 per carry, got 1.5 sacks from Ibrahim Diawara and four pass breakups, and forced nothing, no takeaways at all. Minicucci went 24-of-32 for 302 yards, and Wilson caught nine of them for 185 yards and both touchdowns, including a 40-yard flea-flicker and a leaping 36-yard touchdown. Liberty will throw it too. If the secondary tackles the run and still surrenders that kind of night through the air, Coastal's floor stays where it is.
English's evening captures the whole thing. He caught four passes for 39 yards inside a receiving rotation that spread the ball to eight players, Goldie Lawrence's 62-yard touchdown, Hinton's 42 yards and a score, Coppock's 52, while Jevon Edwards and Dominic Lee-Knicely split a modest backfield workload. He was productive, and he was also the punt returner whose one mistake produced the winning score. Nick Petrino's pass-forward offense is generating explosive plays; it is not yet generating clean ones.
Two complications for a short week. Right guard Gavin McLaughlin was carted off early in the fourth quarter with his left leg rolled up, and local reporting suggests Coastal could be without him for an extended stretch, with no diagnosis announced. That is a line that already let Bailey get sacked and stripped. And this is a roster that lost 17 of its 22 primary 2025 starters, 10 on offense, with Beard importing 11 Missouri State players and nine assistants to Conway. Ball security and punt-return discipline are the exact things a reconstructed team gets wrong in September.
Which makes Thursday a strange, loaded night. Coastal hosts Liberty at Brooks Stadium at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN, and Liberty is coached by Jamey Chadwell, who went 39-22 here with two 11-win seasons before leaving. SportsCenter on Campus will broadcast live from Teal Town beforehand, the school's biggest platform since the 2020 College GameDay visit. And Chadwell's team is the favorite on his old field, listed at roughly two to 2.5 points. The model is harsher. Coastal wins about 11% of simulated versions of this game.
An 11% night is not something to build a season on, and nothing else on the slate moves Coastal's picture. This is the whole week. But the gap between Coastal and Liberty is roughly the width of the mistakes Beard just took responsibility for, and the schedule ahead (Georgia Southern, App State and Old Dominion at home, all near coin flips) rewards a team that learns to stop handing over touchdowns. Watch the punt team. Watch the third quarter. If Coastal plays a clean second half on national television against the man who set this program's standard, the rebuild looks very different on Friday morning.
Full game-by-game numbers are in the interactive guide, and the simulation details are in the methodology.