Zeb Noland has one of the best stories in college football these days as the North Dakota State transfer turned graduate assistant at South Carolina is now the starting quarterback.

But coach Shane Beamer wanted to make clear that it’s not like a famous character from Napolean Dynamite.

“It’s not like Zeb hasn’t played in two or three years ago or was walking up and down the hall like Uncle Rico talking about what he did back in the day as a quarterback,” Beamer said. “He was playing quarterback a couple months ago.”

That’s not just a figure of speech since NDSU played a spring season in 2021 after the 2020 season was postponed.

“He’s very efficient getting us in and out of the huddle,” Beamer said. “Commanding the offense, controlling what’s going on out there. He has a great understanding of what we’re doing offensively because he spent the entire summer as I know he told you guys drawing up the playbook and coaching. We’ve got a lot of confidence in Zeb going out there and being able to operate at a high level on Saturday night. We’re not asking him to go win the football game. We’ll never ask our quarterbacks to do that.”