South Carolina Football: Two Gamecock coaches named All-SEC coaches

Shane Beamer and the South Carolina football team have exceeded expectations during his two seasons in Columbia. Coming off of a disastrous end to the Will Muschamp era of Gamecock football, Beamer’s squad has won 7 and 8 games in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Lots of factors have contributed to the Gamecocks’ turnaround in recent years.

The culture surrounding South Carolina football is drastically different than it was at the end of Muschamp’s time as the head coach. “Getting to the league” is no longer the primary focus of most of the locker room, and the individualistic nature of the program has been left behind in favor of “Above all else, love your brother.”

Recruiting has also picked up under Beamer. The recruiting classes have been moderately better than Muschamp’s, but the classes still compare pretty evenly as the Gamecocks have picked up talented players in every class in recent memory. What has drastically shifted around Gamecock recruiting has been the way that Beamer’s staff seems to be landing the right talented players for the South Carolina football program.

An unheralded reason for the turnaround is coaching. Specifically, the assistant coaches in Columbia have not gotten enough credit for their roles in the upward trajectory of the garnet and black-clad Gamecocks.

In recent days, 247Sports has released its offseason All-SEC coaches list in which they award All-SEC awards for coaches just as many outlets do for players. The results of the exercise show an important truth about the impact Beamer’s assistants have had in Columbia.

For the Gamecocks, two coaches were placed on the All-SEC list by 247Sports.

Special teams coordinator Pete Lembo was honored by 247 as the SEC’s First-Team special teams coordinator. Lembo coached five different special teams units that ranked in the top-10 nationally in efficiency: punt return, kick return, net punting, kick blocks, and punt blocks. Punter Kai Kroeger was an All-American, and placekicker Mitch Jeter didn’t miss a field goal all season. Returner Xavier Legette returned a kick for a score, and the Gamecocks were in the top-5 in blocked punts.

Defensive backs coach Torrian Gray also made the First-Team as the SEC’s defensive backs coach. The Gamecocks had their best pass defense since Stephon Gilmore and Antonio Allen were both All-Americans in 2011. Corners Cam Smith (2nd round) and Darius Rush (5th round) were both taken in the 2023 NFL Draft, and safeties Nick Emmanwori and DQ Smith were both Freshman All-Americans.

Both Gamecock assists were graded to be valued as 4.5 stars out of a possible 5 stars.

Some important information that went into selecting these All-SEC coaches is listed below:

*No coach with fewer than four years of experience coaching a position group was considered

*Recruiting and other off-field factors were not considered in these rankings

*Head coaches and coordinators were considered for other positions as long as they actively coach in another role; for example: head coach Josh Heupel calls plays for Tennessee and is the First-Team offensive coordinator.

*”Doing more with less” is factored into the ranking

*The selections were determined by imperial data compiled by the athletic consultant group Matrix Analytical. Positional coaches were graded primarily based on play-by-play effectiveness data, coordinators were graded primarily based on play efficiency, and head coaches were graded primarily on their win-loss record “weighted by difficulty/importance in nine distinct categories…”