The Citadel Athletics

Lamar Owens joined The Citadel football coaching staff with head coach Maurice Drayton in Spring 2023, initially serving as an Assistant Coach for the secondary. Ahead of the following season, Owens took over as Co-Offensive Coordinator for the Bulldogs with coverage of the wide receivers unit as well.

In his first season running the offense, the unit saw significant improvement, more than doubling points per game from the year prior -- 21.5 in 2024 from 10.0 in 2023 -- while graduate transfer QB Johnathan Bennett earned second-team All-Southern Conference honors.

Additionally, the Bulldogs concluded the season ranked first within the SoCon for turnovers lost (16), second in rushing yards per game (175) and time of possession per game (31:11) and third in third-down conversion rate (.379).

Owens spent the 2023 season as the cornerbacks coach at The Citadel. During the 2023 campaign, he worked to develop Bradlee Jones as a top freshman performer in the Southern Conference. Owens also directed the punt unit, which finished 43rd in the country for net punting, off the efforts of punter James Platte, who ranked second league-wide with an average punt of 43.1 yards.
 
Owens came to the Lowcountry after most recently serving as the wide receivers coach at Georgia Southern in 2019.
 
Prior to his time in Statesboro, Owens spent 11 seasons on staff at Georgia Tech under Paul Johnson. Owens spent the last nine years coaching the A-Backs
 
He added the title of special teams coordinator prior to the 2016 season and was tabbed as the program’s recruiting coordinator in 2017.
 
In his time with the Yellow Jackets, Owens helped develop players such as Roddy Jones, Orwin Smith, Robert Godhigh and Clinton Lynch. Godhigh led the Yellow Jackets in touchdown receptions in 2012 and 2013 and became the only player in Tech history with 100 rushing yards and 100 receiving yards in the same game when he totaled 126 yards on the ground and 105 yards through the air against Clemson on Nov. 14, 2012. Smith set an ACC record with a career average of 9.3 yards per rush from 2009-12 (Godhigh’s 9.1-yard career average ranks second in ACC history among rushers with at least 1,000 career yards).
 
In his first season as the special teams coordinator, the Jackets led the ACC in field-goal percentage and PAT percentage behind the place kicker Harrison Butker, who was picked by the Carolina Panthers in the seventh round of the 2017 NFL Draft. In 2017, true freshman Pressley Harvin III was named a freshman all-American and third-team all-conference honoree after leading all NCAA Division I FBS true freshmen and ranking 16th overall nationally in punting with a 44.1-yard average.
 
Owens arrived on The Flats in 2008 and served two seasons as a staff assistant before moving into his role as an assistant coach.
 
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Maryland in 2008 after completing his football playing career as a quarterback at the U.S. Naval Academy under head coach Paul Johnson.
 
In 2005, Owens directed a Navy offense that averaged 34.2 points and an NCAA Division I-A-best 319.3 rushing yards per game. He racked up 2,109 yards of total offense (1,229 passing, 880 rushing — both team highs) and accounted for 17 touchdowns (11 rushing, six passing) en route to being named to the ECAC all-East team.
 
Behind Owens, who broke four school records for total offense, passing yards per attempt and passing yards per completion, the Midshipmen went 8-4 in 2005, won the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy and beat Colorado State, 51-30, in the Poinsettia Bowl. The triumph over CSU gave Navy consecutive bowl wins for the first time in program history.
 
In 2018, Owens was invited to participate in the American Football Coaches Association’s 35 Under 35 Coaches’ Leadership Institute and the National Football League’s prestigious Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship. As part of the Walsh Fellowship, he was immersed with the San Francisco 49ers’ coaching staff for two weeks during offseason training activities and mandatory minicamp.
 
A native of Savannah, Ga., Owens has a daughter, Lennox. He holds a Lean Six Sigma black belt and has used the techniques and tools for process improvement asserted by Six Sigma doctrine to analyze and improve recruiting processes.