Kevin Schnall to bring a pitching coach who’s familiar to South Carolina fans
South Carolina is hiring Coastal Carolina’s Kevin Schnall to be its next baseball coach, and he’s wasting no time putting together his staff.
Per D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rodgers, Schnall is bringing Chants pitching coach Matt Williams with him to South Carolina. Williams has history with the Gamecocks.
Prior to his two seasons under Schnall at Coastal Carolina, Williams spent the 2023 season as the Gamecocks’ pitching coach under Mark Kingston. That season — which ended with USC losing in the regional and Kingston being fired — South Carolina’s pitchers had the sixth-best ERA (5.05) in the SEC.
When Paul Mainieri was hired as USC’s baseball coach, he chose not to retain Williams. Schnall — who was promoted to head coach following Gary Gilmore’s retirement in 2024 — scooped him up and was rewarded in spades.
Williams was named D1 Baseball’s Assistant Coach of the Year in 2025 after the Chanticleers’ pitchers finished the season with a 3.22 ERA — more than two-and-a-half runs lower than the previous season — and helped Coastal reach the College World Series finals.
This season, while dealing with a number of injuries, the Chants’ ERA jumped back up over 5 — which was still the fourth-best mark in the Sun Belt.
Whoever Schnall hired was going to continue a trend of change South Carolina has seen with its pitching coaches.
Since 2021, the Gamecocks have cycled thorough four pitching coaches: Three under Mark Kingston — Skylar Meade (’21), Justin Parker (’22-‘23), Williams (’24) — and Terry Rooney (’25-‘26) during the two years of Mainieri.
“Obviously, we really struggled over the last two years,” USC AD Jeremiah Donati told The State in May. “But, over longer than the last two years, we’ve been inconsistent in a lot of different ways. ... So finding someone who can really implement a vision to help us stabilize that, I think is the biggest thing.”
