Story by Keith Jaco
Staff Writer
In South Carolina, football is a way of life. Kids like Murray State quarterback Shuler Bentley grow up rooting for the Gamecocks on Saturdays at Williams-Brice Stadium in hopes of one day suiting up and stepping between the lines.
For the Bentley family, dreams of playing quarterback at the collegiate level became a reality as children grew into star athletes.
Patriarch Bobby Bentley started the family legacy of quarterbacks in 1985, when he led Byrnes High School in Duncan, South Carolina, to the state championship game his senior year, where they ultimately suffered a one-point loss. The agony of defeat stayed with Bobby, as he would go on to complete a career at Presbyterian College before joining the staff at Byrnes in 1990.
Bobby knew coaching football was his calling. After his four years of eligibility were up, he took to the sidelines as an assistant coach for his alma mater.
“I knew I was going to coach at a young age,” Bobby said. “Obviously being a head coach at a high school at such a young age, I knew the goal of mine was to coach my kids. Since the third grade I had always wanted to be the coach of Byrnes High School, and after getting the job at 25 years old, it blossomed from there.”
Bobby spent four years as an assistant before being handed the reins as head coach in 1995. Over the years, Bobby would perfect his craft as a high school football coach in South Carolina, coaching his way to four straight AAAA Division II state titles from 2002 to 2005.
Bentley’s oldest son, Chas Dodd, was the first to follow in his father’s footsteps, playing quarterback at the collegiate level for Rutgers University, backing up eventual NFL quarterback Tom Savage his freshman year.
Younger brothers Shuler and Jake spent every weekend at college stadiums across the northeast while following Dodd at Rutgers, studying and supporting their older brother with dreams of playing quarterback germinating in the back of their minds.
“It was definitely a lot of fun,” Shuler said. “I was around it everyday, going to practice with my dad and especially in the summer when I didn’t have school, I was always around the weight room or the practice field.”
Shuler finished up his senior season at the same time as Chas did at Rutgers, accepting a scholarship to leave his home state and compete for Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Leaving home wasn’t the initial plan, but adjustments weren’t anything new to Bentley.
“Being far away from home wasn’t that hard for me,” Shuler said. “With Chas at Rutgers and Jersey being 13 hours away from South Carolina, I saw that he was fine with it so with Virginia being six hours from my house, I didn’t think it was too far. Just like here at Murray, I hit it off with guys on the team and made friends pretty easily.”
Shuler, unlike his two brothers, spent his freshman year as a redshirt and eventually transferred after his sophomore season.
A fresh start was just what Shuler needed as he made the transition to quarterback for the Murray State Racers in the fall of 2016. As Shuler’s collegiate career began to wrap up, another Bentley quarterback was poised to break into the college football scene.
Bobby Bentley accepted a position on Will Muschamp’s University of South Carolina coaching staff in 2016, ushering in a new age of Bentley quarterbacks in the SEC. Younger brother Jake would forgo his senior year in high school and graduate early after receiving an offer to play for the South Carolina Gamecocks. Although Jake was sidelined for the first half of the season, he knew he had to be ready when his time came.
“Coming back to South Carolina was great,” Jake said. “It was a tough time initially sitting out the first six games of the season, but I just stayed patient. I listened to my brothers and my dad and they just continued to tell me to stay patient. In week seven coach Muschamp gave me the call that I was going to start, and I just ran with it.”
Jake credits his older brother Shuler with teaching him the ropes of the quarterback position over the years.
“Shuler is one of the smartest quarterbacks I’ve been around,” Jake said. “Every week you can see how much he knows about the game and how much he loves the game and wants to be the best he can be. Seeing how he was able to read defenses and process information; that’s always been his strong suit, the mental aspect of it all.”
Jake, like the rest of the Bentley brothers, shrugs off questions of rivalries and competitiveness within the family.
“I think growing up the sibling rivalry was there, but really it was the sense of wanting to be the best,” Jake said. “But I think now when we look at it, it’s a deal where we want what’s best for each other and really it’s just neat being able to both play the game of football in college.”
With Jake making a name for himself at South Carolina and Shuler wrapping up a career at Murray State, the Bentley family has one more son who has his eyes on quarterback stardom.
The youngest of the bunch, Brooks, is a quarterback for his eighth grade team, and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of his brothers.
With limitless potential and promising football genes to match, only time will tell what lasting legacy this family leaves behind when the clock strikes zero.
