Mike Shula

Mike Shula is in his first season as South Carolina’s offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach. He was officially promoted to the post on Dec. 17, 2024, replacing Dowell Loggains, who was named the head coach at Appalachian State University.

Shula joined the Gamecocks’ staff as an offensive analyst on March 18, 2024, as spring practice opened. He was named senior offensive assistant coach prior to the start of the 2024 fall camp and worked with the Carolina quarterbacks. In his first season with the Gamecocks he helped redshirt freshman signal-caller LaNorris Sellers earn third-team All-SEC, SEC Freshman of the Year and FWAA National Offensive Player of the Year accolades.

Shula, whose previously college experience came at Alabama where he was the starting quarterback from 1984-86 and later served as the school’s head coach from 2003-06, most recently served as the senior offensive assistant for the Buffalo Bills for the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Shula has spent nearly his entire coaching career in the NFL. He began his coaching career as an offensive assistant with Tampa Bay (1988-90), before spending two years as a defensive assistant with Miami (1991-92) and three in Chicago as the Bears’ tight ends coach (1993-95).

Shula’s first stint as an offensive coordinator came on Tony Dungy’s staff in Tampa Bay from 1996-99. He returned to Miami as the Dolphins quarterbacks coach from 2000-02 before becoming the Crimson Tide’s head coach in 2003. At the time, he was the second-youngest coach in Division I-A football at age 38.

Shula returned to the NFL in 2007, beginning a four-year stint as the quarterbacks coach in Jacksonville. He oversaw David Garrard’s development from becoming a full-time starter in 2007 to making the Pro Bowl in 2009.

He joined the Carolina Panthers in 2011 and served as the Panthers’ quarterbacks coach for two seasons before being promoted to offensive coordinator, a position he held from 2013-17. In 2011, he helped quarterback Cam Newton earn Associated Press Offensive Rookie of the Year after passing for over 4,000 yards and accounting for 35 touchdowns. Under Shula’s tutelage, Newton broke the record for most passing yards in a player’s first two seasons, held by Peyton Manning. Shula was named Offensive Coordinator of the Year by Pro Football Focus during the 2015 NFL season after Newton won the NFL MVP award and the Panthers reached the Super Bowl.

Shula served as the New York Giants offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2018-19, then spent the 2020 and 2021 seasons in Denver as the Broncos’ quarterbacks coach before his two-year run in Buffalo

Shula was hired as head coach at Alabama in May 2003 after the termination of Mike Price. At the time of his arrival, the program was in great turmoil despite a 10–3 record the previous year. In that year, the program had been hammered by NCAA sanctions, and lost Dennis Franchione to Texas A&M, and subsequently fired Mike Price due to his off-field actions. At the time, he was the second-youngest coach in all of Division I-A football, at age 38. His best season came in 2005 when the Tide went 10-2 with a victory in the 2006 Cooton Bowl Classic over the Mike Leach-led Texas Tech Red Raiders, climbing as high as number 3 in the polls. They finished that season ranked eighth in the nation.

Born June 3, 1965, in Baltimore, Md., he is the son of the late Don Shula, the NFL’s all-time winningest coach, the younger brother of Dave Shula, former head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, and the uncle of Chris Shula, the defensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams. 

He attended high school at Christopher Columbus High in Miami where he won all-state honors and led his team to the state championship game in 1982. 

Shula graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987 with a degree in labor relations. As the Tide’s starting quarterback from 1984-86, he logged a 24-11-1 mark over three seasons.  He was the 1985 first-team All-SEC quarterback and was selected in the 12th round, the 313rd overall pick, in the 1987 draft by Tampa Bay.

He has three daughters, Samantha, Brooke and Ryan.