Jacob Miller - Men's Golf Coach - Murray State University Athletics

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

Jacob Miller

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
jmiller134@murraystate.edu
Phone:
(270) 809-6287

Jacob Miller enters his fourth season at the helm of the Murray State men's golf program in 2025–26, having been named the fourth head coach in program history on June 9, 2022. Since taking over leadership from predecessors Buddy Hewitt, Eddie Hunt, and Daniel DeLuca, Miller has directed a comprehensive turnaround marked by continuous scoring improvements, record-breaking team performances, individual conference titles, and elite academic standing.

Under Miller’s direction, the Racers put together a historic 2025-26 campaign. Murray State recorded seven top-five team finishes, three top-three finishes, and two second-place finishes across the season. The team racked up five MVC Golfer of the Week honors, the program's most in a single season since joining the Valley while sophomore Trey Wall earned All-Conference selection for the second consecutive year. The Racers continued their upward trajectory by improving both their national and Missouri Valley Conference rankings, ultimately securing their best final conference ranking in a decade. The season reached its peak at the MVC Championship, where Murray State set the lowest single-round record in tournament history with a 272 to force a sudden-death playoff against the reigning champions.

The breakthrough 2025-26 performance built upon a landmark 2024–25 season, when the Racers finished as the MVC Championship Runner-Up. That year, Murray State claimed a five-shot victory at their home event, The Buddy (-18), while compiling five top-four finishes and setting the second-lowest team average in program history. Miller coached Trey Wall to a sweep of postseason honors as a freshman, with Wall earning the MVC Individual Championship (MSU's first since 2013), MVC Freshman of the Year honors (MSU's first since 2008), an NCAA Individual Qualifier spot, and All-MVC Team honors. Additionally, three Racers qualified for national summer tournaments in an 11-month span, including freshman Brock Montgomery at the USGA Junior Amateur.

The foundation for this success was established over Miller’s first two seasons in Murray. In 2023–24, the team posted a 292.2 scoring average, its lowest in five seasons, and took fourth at the MVC Championship. The squad set program records at the Bubba Barnett Intercollegiate in Jonesboro, Arkansas, posting a single-round school-record 269 (-19) and a 36-hole record of 555 (-21). In his inaugural 2022–23 season, Miller guided MSU to four top-five finishes, besting their projected MVC finish by five spots. Highlights included Trey Lewis earning MVC All-Tournament honors with a third-place finish, Jay Nimmo winning the Hoosier Collegiate to mark Murray State's first Power 5 event victory in four decades, and a second consecutive Battle of the Border Match Play win over rival Austin Peay.
Academic excellence and community involvement have remained hallmarks of Miller's program. The 2025–26 squad recorded the third-highest team GPA in 22 years, earning the National All-Academic Team Award alongside three Academic All-American selections in Lennon Albans, Trey Wall, and Rocco Zakutney. This continued a tradition established in earlier seasons when the Racers set a school-record 3.51 team GPA, earned GCAA President’s Special Recognition, and placed student-athletes Kamaren Cunningham, John Buchanan, and Carson Holmes on GCAA Academic Scholar lists. Off the course, the Racers consistently rank in the top five among all MSU athletics programs for community service hours.

Before arriving at Murray State, Miller served as the head men's golf coach at Tiffin University, where he was named the 2022 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Coach of the Year after leading the Dragons to a league championship and setting seven school records. He began his coaching career in 2015 as an assistant at his alma mater, Marshall University, before serving as a graduate assistant and assistant coach at the University of Findlay (2016–18). At Findlay, he helped lead the women’s team to its first G-MAC championship in 2017 and contributed to eight team victories and two conference titles across the men’s and women’s programs in 2018. Over four seasons in the G-MAC, his teams combined for 19 Academic All-America selections and earned the second-highest team GPA in the nation in 2019–20.

As a collegiate player, Miller was a four-year letterwinner at Marshall University from 2011 to 2015, helping the Thundering Herd capture three team titles. An accomplished amateur golfer, the Pataskala, Ohio native has qualified for eight Ohio/Kentucky Amateurs, competed in the 2014 USGA Public Links Championship and 2021 USGA Amateur Championship, and served as the first alternate for the 2015 U.S. Amateur.

Miller holds a bachelor's degree from Marshall University. He resides in Murray with his wife, Kasey, and their daughter, Charleston.