Why Shane Beamer hasn’t cut anyone at South Carolina as roster limit looms
.JPG "South Carolina’s Shane Beamer in the 2025 spring football game at Williams-Brice Stadium.")
As college football evolves, hard conversations become more prevalent.
For South Carolina coach Shane Beamer, that began the Friday before the spring game when he began his normal protocol of exit interviews, inviting every player on the roster into his office to discuss their future.
When Beamer began his Welcome Home Tour, the way the House settlement — the NCAA’s $2.8 billion answer to settling a number of lawsuits and what would pave the way for schools to pay student-athletes directly — was presented indicated the roster limit for college football teams would be 105.
Meaning, by the first game of the season, any team with more than 105 players would have to make cuts.
But when Beamer finished his exit meetings in late April, judge Claudia Wilken said she would not sign the House settlement unless the NCAA and its conferences agreed to change the roster limit policy or grandfather in current student-athletes.
The deadline for the parties to modify the settlement is May 7.
And now imagine you’re Beamer going through exit meetings, not knowing how many kids you’ll be allowed to have on your 2026 roster, not knowing if a player will be guaranteed a spot on the team if they return.
“I haven’t cut anyone ever since I’ve been at South Carolina,” Beamer said on a Welcome Home Tour stop Monday in Summerville. “I know there’s a lot of coaches who have talked about, ‘We cut everybody after the season or we cut everybody in January or we cut 20 players after spring practice.’”
At the moment, after a number of Gamecocks entered the portal, South Carolina’s spring roster lists 99 players. When you account for the four spring transfers it signed and the six freshmen yet to enroll, USC’s roster is really at 109.
Beamer said he held off making any cuts before anything was actually guaranteed. Obviously when something as potentially impactful as the House settlement, there is a need to plan for all that might happen. But actually enacting any of those plans without knowing the guidelines would be silly.
If a contractor built a home without asking the client how many bedrooms they wanted, they’re just playing a guessing game.
And even as Beamer tried to mitigate concern during exit meetings, the uncertainty around roster limits put some student-athletes in a precarious position.
When Beamer met with each player, he told them the reality: If South Carolina had to be down to 105 guys at that moment, they’d be on the team, or they wouldn’t be, or they were right on the fence.
“I told everyone that, just to be transparent,” Beamer said. “‘And here’s why you are right now. I understand if you come back you’re taking a risk, but we don’t have to be at 105 until literally the morning of the Virginia Tech game.’
“Competition is everything in our program,” Beamer continued. “You have the entire summer to train. You can go through preseason practice. And, in the worst-case scenario, we get to the first game and you’re not in the 105 — that’s the worst-case scenario.”
Of those in jeopardy of being cut in a 105 world, Beamer admitted, a few decided to enter the transfer portal and some who were perfectly fine playing the odds and remaining a Gamecock.
“There is a lot of unknown,” Beamer said. “You don’t know what this thing is going to look like. And I didn’t wanna cut anybody and call them up two weeks later and say, ‘My bad. Do you still wanna come back?’ So we’ve stayed away from that.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
