Report: South Carolina analyst being elevated to coordinator at Murray State
One year after being hired as a special teams analyst by Pete Lembo, Tyler Zielenske is joining Jody Wright‘s staff as Murray State’s special teams coordinator, FootballScoop reported over the weekend, citing sources.
Zielenski is the second straight Lembo disciple at South Carolina to earn a special teams coordinator role. He took over for Stanton Weber who landed the Toledo special teams coordinator job last offseason.
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Previously, Zielenski worked with Texas State, Pittsburgh, the Memphis Tigers, and the South Alabama Jaguars.
Lembo and Zielenski were already familiar with each other as Zielenski was a special teams quality control coach for Lembo at Memphis in 2020.
In the two seasons since, Zielenski had been the special teams GA at Pitt and then the special teams analyst at Texas State before landing the South Carolina job.
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Zielenski was a quality control coach for South Alabama in 2017 before serving as a grad assistant for the Jaguars in 2018 and 2019. He got his undergraduate degree at Mercer in 2016, where he earned a bachelor’s in business administration.
The Oxford, Ga. native graduated from Walnut Grove High School and was a kicker at Mercer.
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While there’s not been a ton of turnover on the South Carolina on-field staff this offseason, the Gamecocks have had some changes there.
Head coach Shane Beamer added veteran offensive assistant James Coley to the staff as receivers coach this week and then slid Justin Stepp over to tight ends, replacing Wright who was in the role for two seasons before landing the Murray State job.
South Carolina is also expected to hire former Texas A&M and Ole Miss running backs coach Marquel Blackwell to replace Montario Hardesty in that role, though Blackwell’s contract has not yet been finalized.
