Gamecocks assistant Bobby Bentley reflects ahead of fourth and final season with son at South Carolina
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The 2019 season is set to be Jake Bentley’s last at South Carolina (barring an unexpected redshirt). If you feel like the last few years have gone by quickly, you’re not alone.
Bobby Bentley, who joined Will Muschamp’s staff prior to Jake’s arrival, recently reflected on spending four years with his son in Columbia, South Carolina. He’ll likely have parents nodding along with every word he told reporters.
“It’s amazing how things fly,” Bobby recently told 247Sports. “Just four years ago, we were in Alabama. We had one son playing at Murray State, one playing in Italy, and you’re rocking along. All of a sudden, you have another son in Miami, one in Troy, and now it’s Jake’s senior year. Now you sit with your wife and think you only have two left in the nest, and they’re ninth graders. You don’t see Chase anymore, he’s in Miami’ you don’t see Shuler, he’s down in Alabama and now the window with Jake is closing. As a parent, you just cherish every single moment. I think he sees the window is going down and as a parent, once they graduate from college, its like you don’t see them much. Its kind of hit me like a ton of bricks with all of them kind of being gone here lately.”
At SEC Media Days, Jake was asked about his father being courted by Auburn coach Gus Malzahn to join the Tigers coaching staff. It sounds like the Bentley boys wanted to be together all four years:
“He came to me, and he was like, ‘You know, what do you think?’” Jake told AL.com’s Tom Green. “I was like, ‘Dad, it’s your job. Don’t mind me. You do you, man.’”
“He just didn’t feel right,” Jake added. “He just wanted to stay, didn’t feel right. He felt like his calling was to be here. It was great for him to stay; I’m not going to lie and say I’m not happy he stayed. He definitely thought about it a lot. It was an awesome opportunity that he’s very thankful that Coach Malzahn would give him that opportunity, but he just felt like his calling was to be here right now.”
Bobby has moved to tight ends coach for the 2019 season.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
