Tennessee's Josh Heupel and South Carolina's Shane Beamer were only 2 SEC coaches to accomplish important offseason feat

Continuity is extremely important in college football and two SEC programs will have more continuity than any of their conference peers in 2024. 

At least when it comes to coordinators. 

Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel and South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer were the only two SEC head coaches that didn't have to replace an offensive or defensive coordinator this offseason. 

Tim Banks will return to Tennessee for his fourth season as the Vols' defensive coordinator. Joey Halzle, who also serves as UT's quarterbacks coach, will return to Tennessee for his second season as the program's offensive coordinator (Halzle will be in his fourth season on the Vols' coaching staff). 

At South Carolina, Dowell Loggains returns for his second season as the Gamecocks' offensive coordinator while Clayton White returns for his fourth season as the program's defensive coordinator. 

Beamer did have to replace special teams coordinator Pete Lembo this offseason (the highly-regarded Lembo is now the head coach at Buffalo). 

Joe DeCamillis will serve as South Carolina's new special teams coordinator. 

Beamer and Heupel have each replaced an offensive coordinator since taking over at their respective programs ahead of the 2021 season. Neither has replaced a defensive coordinator. 

Staff continuity -- especially at the coordinator positions -- is an extremely underrated aspect of building a successful college football program. It's harder than ever to keep quality assistant coaches, but Beamer and Heupel have each done a tremendous job of maintaining staff continuity over the last couple of seasons. 

For Tennessee, that's a far cry from the previous coaching staff. When Jeremy Pruitt was the program's head coach, it seemed like the coaching staff was overhauled every offseason. 

Pruitt was only at Tennessee for three seasons, but he had two offensive coordinators and three defensive coordinators, among numerous position coach changes. 

Easy to see why things went south so quickly for Pruitt at Tennessee.