Booth or on field? Mike Shula hints at play-calling plans for 2025

In his first season with South Carolina, Mike Shula, who was a senior offensive assistant, coached from the sideline during games. He’d directly interact with the players, particularly the quarterbacks, while offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains called the plays from the booth.

When Loggains left last December to become the head coach at Appalachian State, Shula, who was then promoted to offensive coordinator, called plays from the field for the Gamecocks’ bowl game.

As Shula now heads into his first full season as the team’s play-caller, it looks like where he’ll be calling plays from won’t change in 2025. On Wednesday, he said he’ll “probably be on the field” when South Carolina begins its season on Aug. 31 against Virginia Tech.

“I’ve been kind of leaning that way all along,” Shula said. “But I think there are pluses and minuses to both. I think being down there with the quarterbacks, with LaNorris (Sellers), will be good.”

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When Shula was an NFL offensive coordinator, he typically called plays from the coaches’ booth, not from the sideline. As a quarterbacks coach or an assistant, he would usually work from the field, which is what he’ll seemingly do now for the first time as a coordinator.

“We’ve got a really good offensive staff and really good staff in general,” Shula said. “But guys that you can count on for the information from upstairs and fast information, and guys that have cool heads and that are smart and fast thinkers. So that’s very important to me to be able to get that information if I need it.”

With Shula staying on the sidelines, this should be beneficial to Sellers as he enters his second season as the Gamecocks’ starting quarterback. Sellers spent “a lot of time” around Shula last year when he was in his previous role. And that will be even more the case for this season.

“Shula was really that on-field guy,” Sellers said. “If DLo needed to say something to me, it would go through Shula, and then Shula would add whatever he needed to add to it. If I had seen something, I would tell it to Shula and then he’d communicate that to DLo or whatever. So, I mean, nothing’s really changed.”

Shula will be tasked with calling plays for an offense that averaged more than 30 points per game in 2024. Diving deeper into the numbers, South Carolina finished with 407.8 yards per game, squarely in the middle of the pack in the SEC.

So, what will Shula do to spice up the offense or make it to where there will be noticeable difference? That’s tough for him to say with under two weeks until the season begins. However, he sees things unfolding as the games are played with a better answer to come.

“We’ve had a couple scrimmages, yes, spring ball, yes, practice against each other, but we still haven’t played a game yet,” Shula said. “So it’s our job to kind of not, yes, you have to have direction, but you have to have some flexibility as well, in case things are like, hey, you know, even though we like this, we’re really good at maybe something else that, at first, we didn’t like so much. Hey, let’s be flexible enough to allow these guys to go play fast.

“We’ve got a talented group. Let’s go show their talent by doing what they do best.”

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