Report: South Carolina to hire special teams assistant to join Matthew Smiley's staff

Last week, South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer hired veteran assistant Matthew Smiley to become the team’s special teams coordinator. Smiley replaced the outgoing Joe DeCamillis, who is returning to the NFL after two seasons at USC.

According to a Thursday morning report from CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz, the Gamecocks are adding to Smiley’s staff. Per Zenitz’s report, Mike Krysl will become a special teams analyst at South Carolina.

Most recently, Krysl was the special teams coach at Houston in 2024. He also coached at Tulane, Samford (twice), Arkansas, Army, Georgia Southern, West Virginia State, and Central Missouri, his alma mater. While at Arkansas, he overlapped with South Carolina offensive coordinator/quarterback coach Kendal Briles. He played for and coached under Willie Fritz at Central Missouri, Georgia Southern, Tulane, and Houston.

Krysl served as the lead special teams coordinator at Houston, Samford, and Georgia Southern.

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Krysl will join a South Carolina special teams room with Smiley and special teams analyst Connor Schmitz. Naturally, a special teams aficionado in his own right, Beamer will make sure to stay involved with the game’s third phase, as well.

As he said during Smiley’s introductory press conference, “It’s certainly my background and my baby in a lot of ways,” Beamer joked. “[Smiley is] going to realize that, as a head coach, I’m probably more involved with special teams than anybody he’s ever worked for, and I love that aspect of it; I am heavily involved, but I also believe in hiring good people and letting them do their jobs.”

Beamer, Smiley, Schmitz, and Krysl will look to continue leading a strong special teams that ranked seventh last season in college football in overall efficiency, according to the numbers from ESPN’s Football Power Index.

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