Former Gamecocks quarterback Zeb Noland lands assistant coaching job
Zeb Noland, who secured his spot in South Carolina football history three years ago by going from graduate assistant to starting quarterback, has a new job.
Murray State announced Friday it had hired Noland as its new quarterbacks coach. It’s Noland’s first college position coaching job, and it’ll come under a familiar face from his time in Columbia.
Noland’s new boss will be former USC tight ends coach Jody Wright, who was named head coach of the Racers in January. Murray State (based in Kentucky) competes at the Division I FCS level in the Missouri Valley Conference.
It’s a big promotion for Noland, who, according to his LinkedIn page, was previously working as the offensive coordinator at Jefferson (Ga.) High School for the 2023 season. His father, Travis Noland, is the head coach there.
Noland and Wright overlapped at South Carolina, where the former Iowa State and North Dakota State quarterback became a Gamecocks legend during coach Shane Beamer’s first season. Noland initially joined USC as an offensive graduate assistant but was activated to the playing roster midway through fall camp amid an injury to presumed starting quarterback Luke Doty.
In his sixth and final year of eligibility, Noland appeared in seven games for South Carolina and led the Gamecocks to wins against Eastern Illinois and East Carolina the first two weeks of the season and late in the year against Vanderbilt (critical victories for a USC team that made it to a bowl at 6-6 that year).
Noland threw for 690 yards and seven touchdowns (including a game-winner against Vanderbilt and a bowl game touchdown) in his lone year with South Carolina while rising to folk hero status. His move from GA to starting quarterback was a feel-good national storyline during Beamer’s first year.
Noland also spent the 2022 season at South Carolina as a grad assistant. He and Wright (who joined USC’s staff in February 2022) were coworkers on the offensive side of the ball that year.
This story was originally published February 9, 2024 at 2:13 PM.
