South Carolina announces staff title changes to coincide with new NCAA rules

After the NCAA made rule changes last month to allow college football programs unlimited assistant coaches handling on-field instruction, South Carolina has tweaked the titles of several of its former analysts to better reflect their roles within the program.

Head coach Shane Beamer announced the changes Thursday afternoon during his annual Birdies with Beamer event.

“With the rule passing in college football where everyone is now able to coach and there’s no limits on analysts we certainly wanted to adjust some titles with some of our coaches that reflect who they work with and help them with their career as well that have been analysts for us,” Beamer said. “They’ve done a great job as analysts and earned it.”

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The fourth-year head coach announced the following new titles among the staff:

Trey Money – Assistant linebackers coach

Ahmad Smith – Assistant defensive backs coach

Kevin Hubbard – Assistant defensive line coach

Greg Adkins – Assistant offensive line coach

Ryan Yurachek – Assistant tight ends coach

Tim McConnell – Assistant special teams coach

Mike Shula – Senior offensive assistant coach

Money is going into his third season at South Carolina having served as a graduate assistant in 2022 and an analyst in 2023 working with the linebackers. Money came to Columbia after a two-year stint at his alma mater, Appalachian State, working in quality control with the Mountaineer linebackers.

Smith enters his fourth season in Columbia after serving as a defensive analyst for the prior three. Smith spent the three seasons before that as a G.A. at Western Kentucky, including the final two (2019-20) where he worked with the nickels. In his first season at WKU he worked mostly with the running backs.

Hubbard joined the Gamecocks staff as an analyst for the defense in the summer of 2023. He spent the previous four seasons at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., including the final three as the team’s assistant head coach/defensive coordinator after working with the team’s inside linebackers.

Adkins has been at South Carolina for all three of Beamer’s seasons in Columbia, serving as the offensive line coach for the first two and then an analyst with the o-line in 2023. A coaching vet, Adkins has instructed the offensive line at Georgia, Tennessee, Syracuse, Troy, Oklahoma State, Charlotte, and Marshall (twice).

A Myrtle Beach, S.C. native and former tight end at Marshall, Yurachek enters his second season at South Carolina and served as an offensive analyst last season. He spent 2022 as the tight ends coach at Austin Peay and 2020 and 2021 as a G.A. at Arkansas.

McConnell is entering his first season at South Carolina after previously serving as an analyst at North Texas.

Shula, who played quarterback at Alabama and served as the school’s head coach from 2003-06, most recently served as the senior offensive assistant for the Buffalo Bills for the past two seasons.

Other than his four-year stretch as the head coach of the Crimson Tide, Shula has spent his entire coaching career in the NFL. He logged stints with Tampa Bay (1988-90 and 1996-99), Miami (1991-92 and 2000-02), Chicago (1993-95), Jacksonville (2007-10), Carolina (2011-17), the New York Giants (2018-19) and Denver (2020-21) before his two-year stint in Buffalo.

“Those guys have certainly earned it and do a great job helping us and making our program better,” Beamer added.

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The new rule, which was approved by the NCAA Division 1 Council last month, removes restrictions on analysts, quality control coaches, and graduate assistants who used to be limited in how much on-field instruction they could provide.

Now all staff members can “provide technical and tactical instruction to athletes during practice and games” while previously only 11 “countable” coaches, including the head coach, could provide on-field instruction.

On3’s Pete Nakos and South Carolina media relations contributed to this article.

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