Odds and ends from South Carolina football media guide

The South Carolina football media guide was released on Sunday afternoon and there are already a couple of stories posted with the most intriguing information, like jersey numbers and weights gained and lost during the summer. But there are also some other little nuggets of information that jump out upon the first quick read-through of the 260-page guide.

The Gamecocks, under third-year head coach Shane Beamer, are getting set for talking season as SEC Media Days begins on Monday. Beamer will have defensive tackle Tonka Hemingway, punter Kai Kroeger and quarterback Spencer Rattler tag along with him to Nashville, Tenn., which is the site of this year’s event.

Here are a few bullet point notes of interest from the media guide:

-- Interestingly, one of the chief candidates for the strength and conditioning coach position when Beamer was first hired was Arkansas director of strength and conditioning Jamil Walker. Beamer eventually hired Luke Day out of Marshall, a hire that has gone extremely well for the Gamecocks. Arkansas parted ways with Walker near the end of the 2022 season, and now he’s on staff at South Carolina. He joined the strength staff in June of this year.

-- Speaking of new staff members, there was a lot of turnover in the analyst and graduate assistant roles in the offseason. There are four new analysts and three new graduate assistants this year, with some being previously reported and others not. Here’s the full list of newcomers as well as their previous job:

Analysts: Kevin Hubbard, defense, spent the last four years at Catholic University with three years as defensive coordinator; Sean Ryan, offense, Carolina Panthers quarterbacks coach; Ryan Yurachek, offense, tight ends coach at Austin Peay; Tyler Zielenske, special teams, special teams analyst at Texas State

Graduate assistants: Jordan Dove, defense, student intern with the Gamecocks; John Rudnicki, offense, graduate assistant at South Alabama on offensive line; Riley Watkins, offense, worked at Arkansas in 2021 as an offensive/recruiting undergraduate assistant

-- While it was mentioned on the message board early in the summer, former running back Dante Miller is no longer on the roster. An additional year of eligibility was not approved by the NCAA.

-- Play-by-play voice Todd Ellis can breathe a sigh of relief as offensive lineman Oluwatosin Babalade has made his job a little bit easier. While play-by-play guys rarely single out offensive linemen during a call, Ellis isn’t going to have to worry about stumbling through Oluwatosin when trying to quickly call the action. Babalade’s first name in the media guide is his nickname, “Tree.”

Also of note, Dontavius Braswell is listed in the media guide as “Djay.”

-- South Carolina has a pair of seventh-year players on the roster this season with one being a long-timer and the other being a first-timer. Defensive end Jordan Strachan finished four years at Georgia State before transferring to South Carolina. In addition to the Covid season, he had two years negated by injury, including last year with the Gamecocks.

Defensive back DeAngelo Gibbs, who will turn 26 years old on Sept. 23 when the team takes the field against Mississippi State, played two years at Georgia then sat out the 2019 season after transferring to Tennessee. He sat for the Vols in 2020, didn’t see action in 2021 and wasn’t on the team in 2022. Now, he’s on the roster in Columbia and went through spring drills at nickel.

It should be noted that there are nine players older than Gibbs in college football this season, but only one is a non-special teams player. Southern Cal defensive lineman Tyrone Taleni is 27 years old, born June 10, 1996. There are seven punters and one placekicker older than Gibbs. The oldest player in college football is East Carolina punter Luke Larsen, who was born on July 18, 1992. He, along with three others, are 30 years old.