Gamecocks are ‘definitely a program on the rise.’ The outlook for 2023 and beyond
South Carolina has had two winning seasons in Shane Beamer’s first two years as head football coach. What can the Gamecocks do in 2023?
The State asked a handful of national writers and pundits at SEC Media Days about the outlook for USC this season. Here’s what they said about the state of the program, especially with how well the 2022 season ended.
Where do you think South Carolina is as a program after the 2022 season?
Andy Staples, On3: “They should be pretty optimistic. I just look at the way (Shane Beamer) is recruiting, they’re making Clemson work much harder in the state than they have, getting in on guys like Nyck Harbor. You weren’t sure if they were going to be able to keep doing that and that’s the thing that I think has been the most pleasant surprise. He’s still going after people that he would have gone after when he was an assistant at Oklahoma and an assistant at Georgia, and they’re listening. I think that’s very promising.
“As far as the product on the field, they need to be more consistent. It’s so weird to think about what they were in Gainesville and then a week later what they were back home against Tennessee. I mean, those are the two different teams from two different seasons. I don’t know exactly how you manage to teach that level, because that’s really the secret sauce. It’s what Nick Saban and Kirby Smart do so well, getting their players to perform consistently, day in and day out. When you’re trying to build a winning program and winning culture, that’s kind of the hard part.
“…I’m interested to see because I think they can be as good or better than they were last year. Kentucky should be better than they were last year. Florida, we’ll see. We don’t know yet. But we saw Vandy getting better at the end of last season. Missouri is going to have a very good defense. It will not be easy to win games in the SEC East. I think everybody’s assuming that it’s Georgia and everybody else. ... I think two through seven, there’s gonna be some variability there. I think they’re closer together than people realize.”
Brandon Marcello, 247Sports: “I think South Carolina is ahead of schedule slightly and the recruiting is starting to show it, in addition to what we’ve seen on the field. It’s now, ‘Can Carolina be consistent?’ Not just year to year. We’re talking about winning eight games, nine games a year, but week to week.
“As we saw last year, they’re so inconsistent. I saw them in person against Arkansas and I thought their offensive line gave them no shot to even maybe get to six wins. And then the offensive line looks completely different and Carolina looks completely different the second half of the season and we saw huge upsets near the end. At what point though do we look at Carolina and go, ‘The Week 2 team looks a lot like the Week 6 team, because they’re all together, they got it all figured out? They’re not having to figure things out on the run and on the fly during the season.’ ”
Blake Toppmeyer, USA Today: “I think Year 2 was obviously a positive step. Inconsistencies in the program and in terms of week-to-week performance, and you kind of wonder if at some point they’ll be able to iron that out. Fortunately for them their biggest wins — Tennessee and Clemson — came toward the end of the year. So that’s what lingers in people’s minds and it can kind of cause you to forget that they also got run over by Florida. That’s my next question with them. These peak moments are a sign I think Shane can get his team up for the biggest games and he can get his guys really motivated to play for him. But the next step, I think, as a program is doing it week to week.”
Matt Fortuna, national college football reporter: “It’s definitely a program on the rise. I think there was name familiarity when (Shane Beamer) got there two years ago, but there was a sense of, ‘This is an SEC head coaching job. This guy’s never even been an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator. What are they going to get out of it?’
“They smashed my personal expectations the first year, and you always wonder how do you build off that a year to and for them to end last year the way they did, to basically knock Tennessee and Clemson out of the playoff in back-to-back weeks and almost beat a pretty good Notre Dame team — that’s a program on the rise.
“The East has gotten more competitive. Georgia is the best program in the country. Tennessee looks like they’re on their way to being the Tennessee that we know. It’s gonna be a little bit more challenging. But when you look at the returning pieces — particularly at quarterback — and what they were able to accomplish the last few years, I’d be hesitant to put a ceiling on South Carolina because they’ve surpassed all expectations so far in the last few years.”
What is it about wins against Tennessee and Clemson that matters most and/or helps a program moving forward?
Andy Staples, On3: “That win (against Clemson) was huge, because you needed proof it could happen. The history of that series, Clemson was so dominant. Then you had the five-year run where the Gamecocks won every game. And I think that gave South Carolina fans a false sense of security it would never go back to the old way. But then, let’s face it, Clemson went on a historic run. I think it was huge for South Carolina’s program, for the players and coaches and for the fans to see it can be done again.
“Now, what it also may have done is woken up Clemson. The fact that they are going out and hiring Garrett Riley to run their offense, that’s scary because they already have really good players. Now they might bring in some fresh ideas. But that’s what you want to be if you have a nationally elite rival. You want to be pushing them and trying to get where they are. I think them reacting to you says that you’re doing that.”
Brandon Marcello, 247Sports: “It reminds me a lot of when South Carolina beat Alabama in Columbia and the spark that really gave the program nationally. And then also on the recruiting trail, I think that Shane Beamer and his staff are parlaying what happened at the end of last season to kind of repeat that. Shane Beamer was part of that last resurgence on the recruiting trail for South Carolina and history is repeating itself. Not much of a surprise.
“When Beamer was hired, you knew that recruiting was going to improve. And now that it’s happening, I don’t think anybody’s really shocked. It’s so interesting like last year, when Carolina beat Tennessee, I was in a press box somewhere and none of us were really shocked. It was like, ‘Oh, Shane beamer doing Shane Beamer things.’ (They’re) gonna have some weird, crazy upsets and Tennessee made a lot of sense because of just how they were constructed with that offense.”
Blake Toppmeyer, USA Today: “I think it obviously portrays momentum. Again, when you get those signature wins — like Tennessee, like Clemson — that sort of papers over maybe some of your down moments in a season. When you show you can beat the big dogs, I think you put yourself in the conversation of a future 12-team playoff. You’re gonna have a hard time qualifying for a 12-team playoff if you can’t win the big game. South Carolina has shown it can win the big games.
“If this recruiting thing keeps building and if they can, at some point, develop the consistency, then once the 12-team playoff arrives, it’s not a crazy thought that South Carolina could be a contender for that. They have shown they could win the big games and we know the selection committee historically has liked teams that have proven they can win big games.”
Matt Fortuna, national college football reporter: “He’s proven. Again, he hadn’t been a (offensive or defensive) coordinator before. Anytime you step into that seat for the first time as a coach, you don’t know what you don’t know. I mean, I covered a lot of Notre Dame and we saw it with Marcus Freeman last year. They lost some games they had no business losing and they won some pretty big games as well.
“I thought it’d be a little rockier than it’s been so far. And again, that’s nothing directed at Shane Beamer so much is just the nature of the business. It’s very, very hard to get an SEC or a big-time head coaching job without prior head coaching experience and then succeed from the get-go. You hope the worst is behind as far as learning curve. You hope he’s learned a lot over the last few years and if that means only losing five games last year, six games the year before, that’s pretty darn impressive.”
