Jamey Chadwell: 5 things to know about potential South Carolina football coach
South Carolina is looking for a new head football coach after Will Muschamp was fired on Sunday.
One of the names being mentioned to replace him is Coastal Carolina University coach Jamey Chadwell. Here are five tidbits about the CCU coach:
Down on the farm, Tennessee roots
Chadwell grew up on a farm in Caryville, Tennessee, a town of 2,165 people located 30 miles north of Knoxville. According to a 2016 story by the Post and Courier, Chadwell baled hay, shucked corn and helped out with animals on the farm that included cattle, chicken and pigs.
Chadwell was a big Tennessee Vols fan growing up and went to several games with his father, Jim, a former middle school and high school head football coach in Tennessee. Jamey Chadwell named his son Jameson Heath after former Vols and NFL quarterback Heath Shuler, who later served as a state representative in North Carolina.
Chadwell’s coaching road
His coaching career started at East Tennessee State, where he played college football. He spent four years as an assistant before taking a job at Charleston Southern.
Chadwell’s first head coaching job came at Division II North Greenville in Tigerville, South Carolina in 2009. He coached the Crusaders for three years and led them to their first Division II playoff appearance in 2011.
After North Greenville, Chadwell spent the 2012 season as head coach of Delta State, a Division II school in Mississippi. He was named head coach at Charleston Southern in January 2013, just four days after daughter Avery was born.
Chadwell was head coach at Charleston Southern from 2013 to 2016 and led the Buccaneers to a pair of Big South Conference championships and playoff appearances.
Coastal Carolina coach Joe Moglia hired Chadwell as offensive coordinator early in 2017. But Chadwell became CCU’s interim coach a few months later while Moglia took a medical sabbatical and missed the 2017 season. The Chants went 3-9 in their first season in the Football Bowl Subdivision and nearly upset Arkansas, losing 39-38.
Chadwell moved back to be offensive coordinator in 2018 but was named head coach the following year after Moglia retired.
He has a 75-51 overall record as a head coach.
Problems with the NCAA
Chadwell has had to deal with some NCAA issues during his coaching career.
He had to miss a game in 2016 at Charleston Southern for violating NCAA social media rules. CSU said Chadwell had impermissible contact on social media with prospective recruits.
In 2018, after Chadwell was at Coastal, the NCAA came down on Charleston Southern sports, including football, for various violations including “failure to monitor its athletic program.”
The football program vacated 18 wins and the 2015 Big South championship. Violations ranged from playing ineligible players to athletes using scholarship money for books to buy electronics and jewelry and other items, according to the NCAA.
The school was placed on two-year probation, which ended last month.
Postgame celebrations
Chadwell’s teams have been known to have fun celebrating victories.
When he was at Charleston Southern in 2015, he brought out a broom and made three sweeping motions after defeating rival The Citadel for the third straight year.
His Coastal Carolina squad has been one of the Cinderella stories of the 2020 season with a 7-0 record and national ranking, and been featured on ESPN and in the Washington Post. The Chants are known for their locker room celebrations that included a WWE-style moment after defeating Georgia Southern.
The celebration included a referee, ring, bell and a pair of wrestlers attacking someone dressed as the GSU mascot. The wrestler, a member of CCU program, sailed airborne off a stepladder onto the mascot, which was being held on a table.
Chadwell told reporters that, before the season, each coach is assigned a particular week that’s called the coach’s championship. The GSU game was assigned to Willy Korn, who played at Clemson before finishing at North Greenville.
Chadwell said no disrespect is intended against its opponents for the celebrations.
“I don’t know how we ended up with all that stuff in the locker room,” Chadwell told reporters. “I just knew what the theme was. He and the strength coaches came up with that. I guess they were watching a lot of YouTube videos from the past. They must have acted it out during the week.”
‘Unique’ style of offense
USC athletic director Ray Tanner said Monday he is looking for the next coach to be offensive-minded. Chadwell fits the bill.
His teams run the spread-option offense that some have deemed “quirky and funky.” The offense uses one- and two-back sets and uses old-school option concepts but is run mainly out of the shotgun.
In 2018, Louisiana coach Billy Napier — also mentioned as a possible candidate at USC — called Coastal’s scheme “very unique” and said it is similar to Air Force’s style of offense, and not the normal triple-option attack you see at Army and Navy.
Coastal is balanced on offense, averaging 238 yards a game passing and 203 rushing this season.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 2:30 PM.
