Zeb Noland comments on his improbable return to college football

South Carolina’s Zeb Noland commented via ESPN’s Chris Low on his improbable return to college football from being a graduate assistant to becoming starting quarterback.

Zeb Noland’s return to football

Noland had began his college career at Iowa State before transferring to North Dakota State in 2019. With Noland assuming his playing days were over, he accepted a graduate assistant position at South Carolina with the hope to get into coaching.

After injury circumstances changed the Gamecocks’ plans for opening the season, Noland got the starting nod because of his experience.

“There’s always a little dog left in anybody,” said Noland about a conversation he had this summer with South Carolina outside linebackers/defensive ends coach Mike Peterson.

“I told Mike P [Peterson], ‘I know you might be old, but you got a little dog left in you,’ and he said, ‘Hey man, we both got a lotta dog left in us.’ Those little moments like that come back to you.”

When asked about how it felt to become a starting quarterback again, Noland explained it was almost unbelievable and that he was focused on trying to get the win.

“It really didn’t hit me until I got off the bus and got into the walk and gave high-fives to the fans and all that. … It was surreal to me,” said Noland. “I never thought I was going to get to do it again, just being on the players’ side of it and going through the pregame warm-up and just little things like that make the win just a little bit better.”

“My job is to go out there and run the offense, eliminate turnovers and eliminate bad plays,” Noland continued. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to win. It doesn’t matter to me who’s playing quarterback, whether it’s me or whoever.”

Getting the starting nod

First-year head coach Shane Beamer had to start a grad assistant turned quarterback in their season opener due to lack of depth at the position. Noland got the job done, however, throwing four first-half touchdown passes and finishing 13-of-22 for 121 yards.

Noland traded in his whistle for a helmet when expected starter Luke Doty injured his left foot earlier in the preseason. And while the Gamecocks had backup Jason Brown available, Nolan got the nod.

“It was good, poise and collected,” Beamer said of Noland’s performance in his postgame press conference. “We need to be better as an offense, being efficient. We did a nice job for the most part, but we have a lot of plays out there that we didn’t get lined up quite the right way or motion was off. Things like that, that we need to clean up.

“But overall, Zeb did a nice job of running the offense and made some throws, ad-libbed on some plays in the first half. Being able to get to second reads and making things right when it wasn’t quite right. I thought he did a nice job.”

Beamer is not planning on using Noland as his starting quarterback for the rest of the season, especially when SEC play comes around. While Noland has experience as a quarterback at North Dakota State and Iowa State, Beamer is hoping expected starting quarterback Luke Doty will be available for South Carolina’s Week 2 game against East Carolina.

“We expect Luke to be full speed by the end of the week, next Saturday,” Beamer said

On3’s Pete Nakos contributed to this article.