When you’re hot, you’re hot. For VMI football coach Scott Wachenheim, that’s two seasons and two contract extensions.
VMI said Wednesday that Wachenheim agreed to an extension that runs through the 2025 season. The coach and the school previously agreed to a three-year extension following the 2019 season, when the Keydets demonstrated progress by going 5-7 (4-4 SoCon), with two losses to FBS opponents (Marshall, Army).
Then during the spring-semester season, VMI won the Southern Conference title, its first championship since 1977, and made its first appearance in the FCS playoffs.
The Keydets finished 6-2, their first winning record since 1981. Wachenheim was named FCS national coach of the year.
“We have built a culture that I am very proud of and the best is yet to come,” Wachenheim said in a school release.
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Wachenheim is in his seventh season, and his situation wasn’t nearly as solid after four. Entering the 2019 season on the fifth year of a five-year contract, Wachenheim had a record of 6-38 (2-29 SoCon). The Keydets had lost 26 consecutive games to Division I opponents and 22 straight league games.
The latest extension comes despite VMI not having an athletics director. Dave Diles left the school in mid-July to accept the same position at Michigan’s Lake Superior State University. Diles had been the Keydets’ AD since 2013. Lenny Brown is VMI’s acting director of athletics.
“Coach Wachenheim is a proven winner whose development of our cadet-athletes goes well beyond the football field,” VMI Superintendent Maj. General Cedric T. Wins said in the school release. “His dedication to producing leaders of character both on and off the field perfectly aligns with the VMI mission.”
VMI opens the season Saturday at home against Davidson.