Lou Holtz, legendary South Carolina football coach, dies at 89
South Carolina was desperate for relevance.
It was late 1998 and the Gamecock football program was in a spiral. They had been to one bowl game across the previous 10 seasons. Brad Scott was fired after a 1-10 season in 1998. And South Carolina, which had only joined the SEC a few years earlier, was quickly becoming the conference doormat.
Athletic Director Mike McGee feared the worst. So he phoned an old friend.
“(He) called me and said, ‘They’re threatening to throw us out of the conference,” Lou Holtz remembered, speaking on a podcast in 2025. “Will you come turn the program around?”
Holtz accepted. And over the next six seasons, he had no trouble keeping the Gamecocks relevant, even as his tenure had some black marks. To be sure, Holtz elevated South Carolina football, going 33-37 while guiding the Gamecocks to back-to-back Outback Bowl victories in 2000 and 2001 — the second and third bowl victories, respectively, in program history.
Holtz died on Wednesday, March 4. He was 89 years old. Holtz entered hospice care in late January.
“My father passed away today resting peacefully at home,” his son, Skip, wrote Wednesday on the social media platform X. “I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers over the last couple months! He was successful, but more important he was Significant.”
The College Football Hall of Fame coach, who spent time leading William & Mary, N.C. State, Arkansas and Minnesota, will largely be remembered nationally for his time at Notre Dame — a remarkable 11-season run (1986-96) that included 100 victories and the 1988 national championship.
Locally, though, the Holtz years in Columbia still resonate with South Carolina fans. Holtz’s final head coaching job included the low of one incredibly disappointing season and then exposed fans to a new level of winning.
Think about this: At the time, South Carolina’s 17 combined victories under Holtz in 2000 and 2001 were the most wins in a two-year span in program history. Heck, 2001 was only the second time a USC football team won nine games (it won 10 in 1984).
What made those seasons even more remarkable was what preceded them. The 1999 football season — Holtz’s first leading the Gamecocks — was arguably the worst in program history, a winless 0-11 campaign with 10 double-digit defeats.
“Records can be deceiving,” Holtz would later tell people about that 0-11 season. “We really weren’t as good as our record would lead you to believe.”
Yes, behind the armor of a grizzled old football coach in his final job, Holtz was still able to turn a phrase during some of the lowest moments at South Carolina. Leading into the 2000 season, the Gamecocks were on a 21-game losing streak and, well, Holtz seemed nervous about the consequences if that streak continued.
“Am I going to commit suicide if everything doesn’t go the way I’d like it to?” Holtz said the day before South Carolina began the 2000 season against New Mexico State. “No. But the posse might shoot me.”
The Gamecocks, of course, snapped the winning streak soon after. But then came the surprising part: They kept winning.
South Carolina knocked off No. 9 Georgia a week later. It beat No. 25 Mississippi State later that month. And to cap off the best Gamecocks season in over a decade, South Carolina — behind 219 total yards and three touchdowns from Ryan Brewer — beat Ohio State by three scores in the Outback Bowl.
“The band needs a maestro, and a master named Lou Holtz must take a bow,” The State wrote after the bowl victory. “The metamorphosis from December of 1998 to January of 2001 is nothing short of astounding.
“Most coaches who take over moribund programs talk about time to get in ‘their’ players,” it continued. “Holtz sprinkled in a few newcomers with the material on hand. He did not change the talent; he changed the attitude.”
Still, while Holtz lifted the program back to relevancy, his Gamecocks tenure did not end on a high note.
His final act as a college football coach was watching South Carolina and Clemson brawl in Memorial Stadium, running out onto the field trying to break up a fight that only law enforcement could dissipate.
Just days after it was reported that Holtz was retiring after the season, exiting stage left to be replaced by Steve Spurrier, South Carolina (and Clemson) self-imposed a bowl ban, meaning Holtz would not get his hero’s farewell at some sunny bowl game. He left Columbia talking about the regrets of a rivalry game brawl.
And soon after his time ended with the Gamecocks, USC admitted to 10 NCAA violations, including five classified as major, that occurred under Holtz. As a result, South Carolina was put on a two-year probation that included losing six official visits and two scholarships a year.
Years later, though, it became clear that Holtz’s tenure at South Carolina paved the way for Spurrier to elevate the program to the unprecedented heights it reached.
And, if nothing else, the Gamecocks’ turnaround from a winless laughingstock in 1999 to an eight-win team that beat Ohio State in the Outback Bowl remains one of the most-remarkable feats in South Carolina history.
“My attitude,” Holtz once said about his time in Columbia, “is that I refuse to believe there’s any problem, any difficulty, any obstacle that’s gonna keep us from being successful. Because we’re gonna persevere.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 4:43 PM.
