Jody Wright leaving South Carolina staff for head coaching job
Jody Wright is on the move after two seasons coaching tight ends with the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Murray State officially announced Wright’s hiring as head coach on Wednesday afternoon.
“I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to be the next head football coach of the Murray State Racers,” Wright said in a statement. “We will be relentless in everything that we do and instill a championship mentality into our players, staff and community.”
Said South Carolina coach Shane Beamer: “I’ve known Jody Wright for 20 years since we first worked together at Mississippi State. He’s a fantastic person, coach and recruiter. He and his wife, Meredith, made our program better the last two years. Murray, Kentucky, is a special place to me and I know Jody will do amazing things for Racer Football and the entire community.”
The Racers are an FCS team that competed in the Missouri Valley Football Conference for the first time in 2023 and finished 2-9.
The job is Wright’s first as a college head coach. He replaces Dean Hood, who announced his retirement Jan. 1 but then took a job with the Kentucky Wildcats two days later.
Wright’s departure creates two assistant coach vacancies on Beamer’s USC staff. The Gamecocks parted ways Jan. 3 with running backs coach Montario Hardesty.
GamecockCentral and 247Sports reported that veteran assistant coach James Coley is joining USC’s staff, but no role was specified. Coley was tight ends coach at Texas A&M this year but was let go when Jimbo Fisher was fired. The Big Spur reported at Coley is in the mix for a job with Miami so the Gamecocks’ job might not be a done deal yet.
South Carolina officially hired Wright in February 2022. He was making $400,000 a year with the Gamecocks.
Before USC, Wright spent time coaching in college at UAB, Mississippi State and Alabama and with the NFL’s New York Giants and Cleveland Browns.
An Alabama native, Wright and head coach Shane Beamer worked together briefly in the early 2000s on Sylvester Croom’s staff at Mississippi State.
This story was originally published January 10, 2024 at 10:40 AM.
