"Jeff Poppell is an absolute terror. Nearly ended my swimming career after only TWO MONTHS at South Carolina. This man is a dictator above a head coach. He only cares about himself and his ego. You are nothing more than a number on a scoreboard to this man. He creates a hostile, anxiety inducing environment that is impossible to succeed in. He refuses to listen to the needs of his athletes, he coaches one way and one way only. Forces all of his swimmers to go over hours to finish sets. He also has a tendency of pitting people against each other when it comes to travel meets, which arises tension within the team. I saw some of the mentally and physically strongest athletes I know quit due to his actions and immature attitude on the pool deck. In addition, this man absolutely loves drama. He has favorites on the team, and uses them to get information about other swimmers. He innapropriately spreads rumors about his own swimmers because he has nothing better to do. His drama spread throughout the coaching staff and managed to drive out his own hires within one season. The way Jeff Poppell treats his swimmers and coaches makes me sick to my stomach. Save yourself from a definite transfer, and STAY AWAY FROM THIS MAN. "

"In my knowing of Jeff, he may be the most delusional coach I have ever come across. After experiencing 1 year with Jeff as SC head swim and dive coach, I understand why he has no social media followers. Ask yourself when you ask your club coach about Poppell…. I am sure the response will be anything but positive rather to avoid the question of what is Poppell like? He brings nothing to the table but contributes and creates a low self esteem culture and does nothing to build an athletes confidence up. The last straw was accusing swimmers of going to compliance to report him for NCAA practice violations and he completely created this lie to cut girls, no one went to compliance, he created a false situation and used it against the team. He is the worst. Stay AWAY!!!!! "

"Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of positive things to say about this Coach. Within just a year of swimming under him, it became blatantly obvious that his image and job title were far more important to him than the mental/physical health of his athletes. He is so confident in himself and his coaching ability that he fails to listen to his swimmers and accommodate for the needs of individual athletes. He only knows one style of coaching and is incapable of incorporating others. He consistently puts his athletes down and pits them against each other in an attempt to “better the team culture”. His actions on and off the pool deck consistently display his immaturity and pride. It has absolutely nothing to do with the mental or physical toughness of the swimmer. I saw some of the strongest athletes begin to hate the sport because of the way Coach Jeff decided to treat the team. He was hired to do one job and that was to be a good coach. He is anything but that. "

"It’s very simple. You are just a number to this man. I have never loved a school more than South Carolina and I quit to the lack of support that I got when I went to him for help. I think he has a lot of knowledge on the sport but he simply does not portray it in the right way. He has no real record that proves anything impressive at the college level. So I would say that there are better options out there then swimming under Jeff Poppell."

"Jeff is the quintessential coattail rider. THE ONLY REASON this guy is a D1 coach is because he suckled from Greg Troy's teats long enough. He has a proven coaching record of running every program he's been the head coach of, into the ground. Despite what others review as up and up potential, let's not forget South Carolina women BEAT UF women at NCAA's 2 out of his 5 years as head coach of Florida women. He does not care about you as an athlete, he is 100% concerned about his own ego and reputation. I'm not sure he's ever had an original thought, simply copy and paste everything from Gregg Troy. While Troy's methodologies worked well in the early 2000's he was asked to leave college coaching for a reason. Jeff will soon join him as his coaching style and philosophy have no place in modern training. I would avoid swimming for this coach at all costs. He is a proven loser and USC swimming will simply be another feather in his hat of failures."

"Not a nice man. He came into the program claiming he wanted to change the team culture, but then lets people who are “bad for the culture” get away with whatever because they are fast or bootlickers. He also believes that athletics are far more important than academics, if the steep drop in the team GPA wasn’t an indicator. Hates when people get work in their field of study for college because it means less time for practice. Also got constant talks about how slow of a team we were and that we aren’t working hard enough. Florida was brought up so many times during every conversation that people would count how often he’d say Florida. I think the record was 18 times for 1 speech."

"Swam under this coach and did not have a good experience. He cares little for the mental and emotional health of the swimmers. Constantly favored specific swimmers who did not preform as well as others. When it came time to make a change to the program for the better, he did not follow through his promise to remove swimmers that were not helping the team succeed. His punishments for swimmers who broke rules set in place by the program was lackluster, or no punishment at all. He did little to change the culture of the program and I would say that it has gotten worse since he has been hired. Overall the objective fact is that lots of promises were made to help better the program and most, if not all, we’re not delivered despite what others may come on here and say."

"Let’s just say I was a a swimmer here under a different coach and after a year of having him I had to step away from the sport due to my lack of motivation and mental health"