Puffs of white smoke are starting to emerge from South Carolina's baseball building, and it is the bombshell of all bombshells.

According to Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball, South Carolina is expected to hire Paul Mainieri, the legendary former LSU head coach who retired following the 2021 season. The 66-year-old Mainieri led the Tigers to the 2009 National Championship plus made four other trips to Omaha across 15 seasons in Baton Rouge, and has stacked up 1,505 wins across his entire head coaching career between LSU, Notre Dame, Air Force and St. Thomas.

GamecockScoop can confirm there was contact between Mainieri and South Carolina on Monday, although no deal is officially in place yet. The Board of Trustees has a meeting scheduled at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Rogers, while adding the deal is not done yet, reported that Mainieri would be looking to bring Terry Rooney with him to serve as pitching coach. Rooney was an assistant in Baton Rouge for two seasons before getting the head job at UCF, taking the program to two regionals. He has since returned to LSU, where he was on Jay Johnson's National Championship winning staff in 2023 as the recruiting coordinator, and was with the Tigers this past season. Rogers continued reporting that the Gamecocks will attempt to keep interim head coach and former assistant Monte Lee on staff.

This story will be updated as more information comes in.

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