South Carolina set to hire ex-NFL player, son of SEC athletic director as analyst

Shane Beamer is expected to add a new assistant coach to his South Carolina staff.

USC is honing in on former Austin Peay tight ends coach Ryan Yurachek to become an analyst, multiple program sources told The State on Wednesday. The Carolina Forest grad is the son of Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek, who held the same position at Coastal Carolina between 2010 and 2015.

Football Scoop first reported the news.

Yurachek played his college football at Marshall, where he was a four-year letterwinner at tight end. He was named a First Team All-Conference USA performer his senior season, when he tied the school record for consecutive games with a reception (42). Yurachek finished his college career with 143 receptions for 1,354 yards receiving and 26 touchdowns.

He went on to spend brief stints in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys before getting into coaching as a graduate assistant at Arkansas, where he worked with South Carolina receivers coach Justin Stepp and new offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains. Yurachek spent the 2020 and 2021 seasons in Fayetteville before heading to Austin Peay.

Yurachek is expected to fill the offensive analyst role vacated by Christian Ellsworth, who left South Carolina after one year to head back to his home state and work as an offensive analyst at Nebraska under ex-USC offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield.