Reports: Georgia State head coach Shawn Elliott set to take assistant coaching position at South Carolina
Elliott worked as an assistant at South Carolina before taking the Georgia State job in 2017
Georgia State is now looking for a new head coach.
According to multiple reports, longtime Georgia State coach Shawn Elliott is resigning to become the tight ends coach at South Carolina. Elliott’s departure comes after Georgia State began spring practice earlier in the week.
Elliott has been Georgia State’s coach since the 2017 season. The Panthers are 41-44 in his time with the school and have gone to five bowl games in seven seasons. GSU was 7-6 in 2023 and won the Potato Bowl to end the season.
Before coming to Georgia State, Elliott was an assistant at South Carolina for seven seasons and his family had remained in Columbia, South Carolina. He began at South Carolina under Steve Spurrier and was the team’s interim head coach for the second half of the 2015 season after Spurrier’s retirement. He stayed as an assistant for the 2016 season under Will Muschamp before taking over at Georgia State.
Elliott’s move continues the trend of Group of Five head coaches choosing to move to Power Five programs as assistant coaches. A season ago, Kent State coach Sean Lewis left to become Colorado’s offensive coordinator. Lewis is now the head coach at San Diego State. This offseason, South Alabama coach Kane Wommack left the Jaguars to become the defensive coordinator under new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer.
Group of Five coaches have left for assistant coaching jobs at bigger schools as they can make as much money — and sometimes more — without running an entire program. Elliott made over $800,000 in 2023 and could conceivably get a pay raise at South Carolina as a position coach.
His departure also means that the college football head coaching carousel refuses to stop this offseason. After Boston College hired Bill O’Brien last week, every FBS team had a head coach. For a moment, anyway. Ohio State hired UCLA coach Chip Kelly to replace O’Brien and run its offense in 2024, and the Bruins announced Monday that they had promoted assistant coach DeShaun Foster to replace Kelly.
