South Carolina First-year head coach Shane Beamer is going down the depth chart, with a grad assistant set to start under center on Saturday.
After a 2-8 season in 2020 and the general lackluster tenure of Will Muschamp, first-year head coach Shane Beamer is charged with turning South Carolina football around. For Saturday’s season opener against Eastern Illinois, according to ESPN’s Chris Low, Beamer is turning to grad assistant coach Zeb Noland as the Gamecocks’ starting quarterback.
Noland came to South Carolina on Beamer’s coaching staff as a grad assistant. But he had been sharing practice reps with redshirt senior FCS transfer Jason Brown after sophomore Luke Doty suffered a left foot injury. Brown is listed as the backup for Saturday’s game on the depth chart released Tuesday.
South Carolina football: Who is Zeb Noland?
Noland started his playing career at Iowa State, before transferring to North Dakota State. He actually played a game in May, in an FCS quarterfinal playoff loss to Sam Houston State for the Bison. He backed up Trey Lance at NDSU, before throwing for 721 yards with five touchdowns and six interceptions over seven games in his most extensive action last year.
With a year of eligibility remaining, Beamer and offensive coordinator, Marcus Satterfield apparently joked with Noland that he might be needed at some point this season–even before Doty was injured and the need for another quarterback indeed came.
The season opener against an easy opponent is a fine testing ground for Beamer to see what might be what at quarterback. Brown is presumably in line to see some playing time on Saturday, and he may earn starts going forward. But for Week 1 he’ll come off the bench behind Noland, who will bring an interesting story to an otherwise nondescript game.
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