South Carolina football fans understand that the history of the program is, while long, not as filled with winning as they would hope. That is why when the Gamecocks have experienced sustained success in the past, it has stood out.
Any football fan gets that a team’s on-field success is decided by many factors. The leading contributor to winning is the players, but arguably the second-most important factor in experiencing success (especially sustained success) is coaching.
In the history of South Carolina football, a handful of head coaches have shone brighter than the rest. But which of these headmen were the best leaders of the South Carolina football program?
Honorable Mention
Shane Beamer: Shane Beamer (2021-Present) is the current head coach for South Carolina football, and the program is trending upwards. A dip in wins in 2023 threatens the progress of the Gamecocks moving forward, but a bounce-back in 2024 will lock Beamer into some job security that will go a long way in moving USC forward even more.
NB Edgerton: NB Edgerton (1912-1915) went his entire four-year career without a losing season. That’s got to count for something, right?
Billy Laval: Billy Laval (1928-1934) went his entire seven-year career without a losing season. That’s also got to count for something, right? In fact, Laval had a winning record each year of his 6-year tenure with the team. He also went 17-2 as the head basketball coach in the 1932-1933 season.
South Carolina Football’s No. 7 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Warren Giese
The shortest-tenured coach on this list, Warren Giese (1956-1960) was the first head coach in Gamecock history to win seven games more than once in his tenure. Giese also led Carolina to AP top-25 rankings in three of his five seasons, including a final ranking of 15th in 1958.
At just 31, Giese became the youngest head coach in the collegiate ranks when Rex Enright hired him to be his own replacement as the headman for South Carolina football. He was known for employing a “ball-control offense” that sought to pound the other team into submission with the running game, preventing opponents from gaining a rhythm on offense. “The other team can’t score if it does not have the football” was his offensive motto.
During his time at Carolina, Giese fought for reform to substitution rules, allowing for future Gamecock coach Paul Dietzel to revolutionize the sport with his “platoons.” He also pushed for special teams specialists to kick, punt, and snap so that offensive and defensive players could concentrate on their duties in the other two phases of the game.
Despite never having a losing record in his first four seasons (a rare feat for the Fighting Gamecocks), Giese was fired after a losing season in 1960 but stayed at the school as a professor. He eventually became a state senator, serving the Palmetto State for over 20 years.
South Carolina Football’s No. 6 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Rex Enright
Rex Enright (1938-1942, 1946-1955) is the longest-tenured coach in South Carolina football history. 64-69-7 is not an awe-inspiring overall record, but it was pretty similar to the Gamecocks’ place in college football history up to that point. Military service (United States Navy) interrupted his tenure with South Carolina football, but he also coached some for Georgia’s Pre-Flight School while serving.
Enright is second in school history in total wins (64) and winning seasons (5) and served as the school’s Athletics Director during his post-war stint with the Gamecocks. He played both football and basketball while a student at Notre Dame and used his experience with both sports in his coaching career. Before coming to Carolina, Enright was the head basketball coach at Georgia, and he served in that capacity for one season with the Gamecocks, as well, going 11-6.
Enright was elected to the South Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame and was the program’s all-time winningest coach until Steve Spurrier overtook his win total in 2011. Today, he has several awards named after him within the South Carolina football program.
South Carolina Football’s No. 5 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Paul Dietzel
After successful stints with LSU and Army, Paul Dietzel (1966-1974) was hired as the head coach of South Carolina football and the school’s athletics director. Dietzel coached the Gamecocks for 9 seasons and led the team to its only conference championship, an ACC crown in 1969. Despite winning seven games twice and taking the Gamecocks to their 2nd and 3rd bowl games ever, Dietzel did not win as much with Carolina as he did with LSU and Army.
The national championship-winning coach (LSU) also innovated regular substitutions. In an era in which players routinely played both ways, Dietzel played most of his players on one side of the ball for the majority of the game. His work revolutionized the sport and changed it forever.
Dietzel ended up with a lackluster overall record of 42-53-1, but his conference championship win and contributions off-the-field as the athletics director make him a legend in Columbia. Like Rex Enright, Dietzel has multiple football-related awards named after him at the University of South Carolina.
South Carolina Football’s No. 4 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Lou Holtz
Lou Holtz (1999-2004) was only the head coach of the Gamecocks for six seasons, but he took over a program that had been run into the ground for a decade by a steroid scandal at the end of the Joe Morrison era and the misguided leadership of athletic director King Dixon and head coaches Sparky Woods and Brad Scott.
After a tough first season in which Carolina didn’t win a game, Holtz led the Gamecocks to (at the time) the biggest single-season turnaround in college football history. South Carolina football won 8 games in the 2000 season and drastically changed the national perception and expectations that surrounded the program, setting the stage for the heights reached during Steve Spurrier’s time in garnet and black.
The 2000 turnaround and 2001 follow-up marked the best two-year stretch in South Carolina football history at the time as the Gamecocks won 17 games. The 9 victories in 2001 were the second-best total for the program behind only 1984’s 10 games.
After an ugly brawl prematurely ended the 2004 season, Holtz resigned, a move that had been in the works for months. Something else that was in the works for months was the Holtz-led recruitment of Steve Spurrier to take over the head coaching gig for the Gamecocks. Holtz changed the program so that Spurrier could elevate it.
South Carolina Football’s No. 3 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Jim Carlen
Replacing the outgoing Paul Dietzel in 1975, Jim Carlen (1975-1981) endeared himself to Gamecock fans by leading the Gamecocks to a bowl game in his first season. Carlen’s ’75 (7-5), ’79 (8-4), and ’80 (8-4) teams are remembered fondly by most South Carolina football fans as some of the most fun groups in school history.
Carlen, who had coached West Virginia and Texas Tech to some of the best years in the history of their programs, made history at South Carolina, as well.
He was the head coach for the first back-to-back 8-win seasons in school history (1979 and 1980) and coached the team’s only Heisman Trophy winner in George Rogers. Carolina was an Independent for the entirety of his Gamecock career, so he was not able to lead USC to conference championships like he did at West Virginia.
Carlen has an impressive coaching tree of former assistants who went on to great careers, headlined by legendary Florida State coach Bobby Bowden who worked for Carlen at West Virginia. He is on the ballot for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2024. Also, Cocky became the Gamecocks’ official mascot during Carlen’s time with the program.
South Carolina Football’s No. 2 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Joe Morrison
Joe Morrison (1983-1988) only led the Gamecocks for six seasons, but he is arguably the most beloved coach to prowl the sidelines at Williams-Brice Stadium. “The Man in Black” was known for his usual all-black attire on gameday and is the only man not named Steve Spurrier to lead Carolina football to three 8-win seasons (Spurrier did so five times).
Part of his belovedness likely comes from taking over for one of the most despised coaches in program history, Richard Bell. Bell was only the Gamecocks’ head coach for one season, but the losing season in 1982 was the program’s first in a while, and his only Division-1 victories that season came against Navy and Pacific. Morrison, on the other hand, beat Southern Cal in his first season in the battle to decide which school was the “real USC.”
Morrison’s best season came in the famed “Black Magic” season of 1984. He led the Gamecocks to a then-record 10 wins, and Carolina was a mind-boggling loss to Navy away from being the potential national champions.
Joe Mo’s career almost ended in scandal, however, as many members of the Gamecock football team got caught up in a widespread steroid issue. Morrison, though, passed away of a heart attack during the offseason between the 1988 and 1989 seasons.
The tradition of the Carolina players entering the field to “2001” began under Joe Morrison. He also popularized using the school’s third color (black) more prominently, so much so that it became the school’s secondary color after garnet, surpassing the color white. His coaching tree from his Gamecock days includes future successful coaches Charlie Weiss and Al Groh.
South Carolina Football’s Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Steve Spurrier
The greatest coach in South Carolina football history is Steven Orr Spurrier (2005-2015). The Head Ball Coach came to Columbia after not winning as much as he would have liked in the NFL with the Washington Redskins. The winning ways he demonstrated at Duke and Florida returned to the HBC as he rattled off 10-straight non-losing seasons in a row to start his Carolina career before a bad final year in garnet and black.
During his time in Columbia, Spurrier built upon the groundwork laid by fellow legendary head coach Lou Holtz. No longer a laughing stock in college football, the South Carolina football program actually became one of the best teams in the nation, winning 11 games in back-to-back-to-back seasons from 2011 to 2013.
During the 11-year reign of Steve Spurrier, South Carolina football also put out more NFL talent than ever before. The Gamecocks certainly had had times of success at sending players to the next level (namely in the late ’80s and early 2000s), but the Spurrier era surpassed those eras.
#1-overall pick Jadeveon Clowney, multi-year Pro Bowlers Johnathan Joseph and Melvin Ingram, and potential Hall of Famer Stephon Gilmore headlined the professional Gamecocks who played under Spurrier.
Spurrier’s legacy as a Gamecock is tarnished a bit as he walked away from a losing team in the middle of his final season, but the 1966 Heisman Trophy winner had always said he would step away from coaching the minute he thought he wasn’t able to help a team win.
The Head Ball Coach is one of just four men enshrined into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, and he is the all-time winningest coach in both the histories of the Florida Gators and the South Carolina Gamecocks.