South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer just hired a tight ends coach for the Gamecocks’ upcoming season, which would usually rank fairly low on the news scale, even among diehard SC fans. However, this coach was now-former Georgia State head coach Shawn Elliott, who shockingly left his FBS program in the lurch to take a job much lower on the football coach hierarchy.
“South Carolina is expected to hire Georgia State head coach Shawn Elliott as its tight ends coach, sources tell @247sports,” Matt Zenitz first reported on Friday.
While a head coach leaving a school to take an assistant job is surprising, it is becoming more and more common. This offseason, it’s happened four times, with UCLA’s Chip Kelly moving to Ohio State as offensive coordinator, and South Alabama’s Kane Wommack and Buffalo’s Maurice Linguist both leaving for Alabama assistant gigs.
Boston College’s Jeff Hafley also left his head post for an assistant job, but that was at least a step up in league, as he moved to the NFL to become the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator.
Shawn Elliott’s history also makes it a little less shocking that he made this move. He was an assistant for the South Carolina football program from 2010 to 2016 under Steve Spurrier and even took over as interim head coach when “The Old Ball Coach” stepped down in 2015.
In 2017, he took the job at Georgia State, and according to The Athletic, his family has stayed in Columbia, SC — home of the Gamecocks — while he’s coached the Panthers in Atlanta, GA. Elliott was 41-44 at Georgia State.
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