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Only in college football do you get a story like the one happening with the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Zeb Noland just wrapped up his college playing career this past spring with North Dakota State. He accepted a gig as a graduate assistant coach on Shane Beamer’s staff at South Carolina. Now, he’ll be tossing the clipboard aside to be the starting quarterback for the Gamecocks in their season opener, per ESPN.
Noland put the helmet back on after starting quarterback Luke Doty went down in the preseason with an injured left foot. It left Noland to compete with Jason Brown who had transferred from St. Francis, a DIII school. Noland won the gig.
In his final season at North Dakota State as a player, Noland had five touchdowns and six interceptions in seven games for NDSU.
This is truly an unprecedented situation in which the grad assistant coach still has eligibility left and South Carolina desperately needs the player instead of the coach.
South Carolina is trying to rebuild their program after the Will Muschamp era slammed into the ground. Beamer is entering his first year running the show and the Gamecocks have had just two winning seasons since 2014. While the Noland story is a real cool one, it also speaks to the lack of QB play the team has.
Thankfully for Noland and South Carolina, the opponent in Week 1 is Eastern Illinois. No disrespect to them but it’s not exactly facing an SEC school like Alabama, Georgia or LSU. If Noland is still the starter when SEC play rolls around then the story will get really interesting.