The University of South Carolina officially updated the contracts for its football coaching staff at a Tuesday Board of Trustees meeting, and there were two important notes heading into the 2023 season.

Headlining the day was the contract approval of new offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, who will now make $1,000,000 per year. Loggains signed a three-year contract running through Dec. 31, 2025, and the buyout starts at $550,000 for the first year with a decrease of $100,000 in each of the following two years. If he accepts a head coaching job at another college football program or with an NFL team, the buyout will not be triggered.

Loggains is coming from the University of Arkansas, where he served as the tight ends coach for two years with a salary that started at $300,000 in 2021 before bumping up to $400,000 in 2022. Prior to his time at Arkansas he worked with five different NFL franchises, serving as the offensive coordinator for four of them.

"We were involved, but I wouldn't say that we have input," athletics director Ray Tanner said speaking about himself and deputy AD Chance Miller. "We're in administration, so we try to take care of our coaches and do the things we ask them to do. It's always the responsibility of the head coach to hire the assistants. From the time coach [Marcus] Satterfield left, Dowell's name was mentioned among a lot of other people that reached out. We had opportunities and pursued the opportunity to hire him."

Elsewhere on the coordinator front, special teams coordinator Pete Lembo received a well-deserved raise after his unit carried the Gamecocks for large stretches of 2022. South Carolina blocked six kicks on the season, including two blocked punt returns for touchdowns against Georgia State, and also scored a special teams touchdown thanks to a Xavier Legette kickoff return against Texas A&M.

Lembo joined the coaching staff before the 2021 season with a contract of $465,000 per season through 2024, and will now be making $750,000 per year. He also received a one-year extension, running his contract through Dec. 31, 2025. His buyout will now be $400,000 in 2023, $300,000 in 2024, and $100,000 in 2025. Lembo has the same stipulation in his contract as Loggains regarding the buyout not being triggered if he accepted a head coaching job elsewhere.

"The impact that coach Lembo has had in this program and when you look at the national rankings, it was something we wanted to do," Tanner said. "We're hoping that he's the highest-paid guy in the SEC at that position. I can't verify that that's correct, but that was our hope."

The $750,000 salary will indeed make make him not only the highest-paid special teams coordinator in the SEC, but put him in a tie for the second-highest paid special teams coordinator in the nation according to FootballScoop.

The news means that the coordinator pool rose from $2,465,000 to $2,850,000, a $385,000 (15.6 percent) increase from the 2022 coordinator pool.

Offensive line coach Greg Adkins’ contract is set to expire on Dec. 31, a matter that did not come up during the meeting. His current expiring salary is at $550,000 annually. Almost the entire remainder of the coaching staff is going into next season with one year left on their respective deals as of now.

As for Shane Beamer's contract, and what this could mean for his own raise and possibly contract extension? Stay tuned on that front, according to Tanner.

"Ongoing conversations," he said. "I can't comment on that at this time, but certainly there's conversations to be had with Coach Beamer. There are cerainly ongoing conversations to be had about Coach Beamer and his future."