Shane Beamer explains Justin Stepp’s move to tight ends coach
The South Carolina football team has kicked off the new year with a flurry of moves to its coaching staff.
Two of its staffers, Pete Lembo and Jody Wright, have gone on to take head coaching roles at other programs. Lembo is now the head coach at Buffalo, while Wright has taken charge of the football team at Murray State.
Montario Hardesty, South Carolina’s former running backs coach, has also departed the program.
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Since then, the Gamecocks have hired James Coley, Marquel Blackwell and Joe DeCamillis to fill vacancies on South Carolina’s staff. Coley and Blackwell, who both coached at Texas A&M last year, will be coaching wide receivers and running backs, respectively. DeCamillis was hired on Monday to be the Gamecocks’ new special teams coordinator. He’ll also serve as the associate head coach.
But the team made one coaching change internally. With Coley coming in as the team’s new wide receivers coach, Justin Stepp is now coaching tight ends.
Head coach Shane Beamer explained the decision to move Stepp to a new position was for multiple reasons. One of those factors was his knowledge and success in the passing game.
The Gamecocks were fourth in the SEC in passing offense last season, averaging 278 passing yards in the air per game. Much of that production came from wide receivers, namely Xavier Legette, who made the 2023 All-SEC First Team.
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Beamer said he hopes tight ends contribute more yardage to that amount next year.
“His knowledge of passing game fundamentals — playing out in space — is what we do with our tight ends a lot anyway. It allows us to take that knowledge and that ability and be able to take that to the tight end room and get them better in the passing game,” Beamer said. “That’s something as I looked at, we need to be better in the passing game at the tight end position.”
The move also presents an opportunity for Stepp to expand his coaching skillset. Beamer said he coached multiple position groups during his stops at Mississippi State, South Carolina (in the late 2000s) and Georgia.
“It helped me as a coach when I played multiple positions. It helped me to grow,” Beamer said. “When I went from, here at South Carolina before, coaching outside linebackers my first year, corners my second year, and I want to say safeties my third year, it helped me grow as a coach.”
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“If Justin has goals outside of here, which I know he does, the best way to me to be able to take that next step as a coordinator, head coach, whatever it might be, is to continue to grow your resume and your responsibilities. And tight end is a really awesome position to coach because it’s the one position on the offense you’re involved in the passing game, the running game (and) protections.”
South Carolina’s air attack will look a lot different this season with seven new pass catchers on the roster. Beamer said both Stepp and Coley put South Carolina in the best position to integrate newcomers into its offense.
“It’s kind of a fresh start for a lot of new guys in there. We got a lot of young players that we have to develop and get on the field quickly,” Beamer said. “And James coaching wide receivers and Justin coaching the tight ends best helps us do that.”
