Josh Richards begins his fifth season on the Miners' coaching staff and third as the team's offensive coordinator after leading the S&T offense to record-setting marks during the 2008 season.
The Miners set school records for points scored with 408 and offensive yards with 4,945 last fall, while eclipsing the 50-point mark on three occasions. S&T had its highest point total in a game in 85 seasons and also scored 60 or more points in back-to-back games for the first time since 1914 during the course of the 2008 season.
Missouri S&T led the Great Lakes Football Conference in total offense last year and ranked 12th nationally with its average of 449.5 yards per game. S&T's scoring average of 37.1 points a game ranked 13th in NCAA Division II.
The Miners averaged 30.4 points and 376.6 yards per game during the 2007 campaign and eclipsed the 40-point mark in three of the final four games of the year. Missouri S&T, which had been the NCAA Division II passing champion in 2006, showed more balance as the running game accounted for 138.4 yards per game.
Richards, who played his high school football at Rolla High School, joined the Miner coaching staff in 2005 after a four-year stint as the head coach at John F. Hodge High School in St. James, Mo. In his last two seasons at the high school level, his teams averaged more than 330 yards and more than 30 points per game with a team that included current Miner wide receiver Chad Shockley.
Prior to taking the head coaching position in St. James, Richards spent two years as the head coach of the freshman team at Rolla High School and one year as the head coach of the junior high team at Waynesville High School.
Richards is a graduate of Central Methodist University, where he was the captain of the Eagles’ 1997 team and a three-year letterman in the program. He started at quarterback for CMU’s team for two seasons.
