Shane Beamer has raised bar for South Carolina’s potential, SEC pundits say
.JPG "South Carolina’s Shane Beamer in the 2025 spring football game at Williams-Brice Stadium.")
Shane Beamer and South Carolina football were among the teams highlighted during the first day of SEC Media Days in Atlanta on Monday.
Beamer was joined by quarterback LaNorris Sellers, defensive back DQ Smith and defensive lineman Nick Barrett at the Omni Hotel and College Football Hall of Fame for the preseason media event.
The Gamecocks head into the 2025 season with high expectations after going 9-4 last year in what was the best finish of Beamer’s tenure at South Carolina.
The State asked a few national media members for their opinions on the Gamecocks as the new season approaches. Here’s what they had to say:
Note: Answers have been edited lightly for brevity.
Do you think South Carolina football has reached a turning point in the Shane Beamer era after last season?
Richard Johnson, CBS Sports: “Even if they take a step back record-wise, not a significant one — I’m not saying you go 3-9 — but even if they take a step back and they do a 7-5 or 8-4, I don’t understand how you could look and say that what Shane Beamer has done isn’t a success and shouldn’t be built on. Sellers probably goes to the draft if he has the year that we project, but the guy can clearly recruit, and the guy can clearly recruit to South Carolina, which is not an easy thing to do. The class, with [Jadevon] Clowney and Melvin Ingram, those recruiting classes do not grow on trees. ...
“I think Beamer unquestionably has done a great job, and last year being able to kind of put all the noises to the side and getting this team to play at a really, really high level. I think in general, we have a very quick trigger with coach firings. Especially in a rev share era, perhaps, maybe you don’t pull the trigger on the coach, perhaps you dump that money into the team, in the roster, and try to build something serious that can last a little bit long term.”
Nicole Auerbach, NBC Sports: “I think last season was definitely a turning point. Because, again, he had individual big wins. But I think to string together and to watch that team improve and get better — to end the season with the win over Clemson, which won the ACC, which made the playoff, it wasn’t out of the blue, it wasn’t a surprise, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, let’s throw a parade for this,’ it was like a culmination of where the program was going. So I think you’re thinking, ‘OK, they worked through some issues, they figured things out over the course of last season that should position the program well for the future.’ It felt like it was not a flash in the pan, which sometimes a big win can be. But the way that they closed out the season and how well they were playing, they had better case than Alabama, when we’re talking about the CFP and some of those weird losses.
“I think they’re at the point now where you would expect them not to blow a 17-point lead and to take care of business against the good teams. I think in the past, you wouldn’t expect that. I think that’s where it’s changed. I think the expectation is to be in and win games, instead of hoping that you’ll be in them and maybe have a chance for that one great win a season. Now it’s about stringing them together and getting to the CFP. But I think getting so close shows that they know what it takes to get there. It’s really hard to do that that last little bit.”
Greg McElroy, ESPN: “I certainly hope so as a guy that loves Shane. I absolutely want that to be the case. I also want expectations to be realistic, at least in the near term. Winning nine games is hard to do and to expect that to be the the outcome every year is an impossible thing to expect. Now, could it happen? Absolutely it could. We’ve seen it happen before, but it was a little different SEC at that point. Now you look at it, that’s a heck of a year. You win 10, it’s insane. ... Last year, they had a bit of a fox hole mentality, like us against the world, we’re gonna show everybody. That galvanized the locker room, I think, especially with the veteran guys they have back. This year, they’re gonna have to kind of bring their own juice, because everyone’s telling them how great they are. That’s a hard thing to do.”
Ben Portnoy, Sports Business Journal: “I think a lot of people wanted to freak out after they went 5-7 two years ago. I think the reality is, Shane has been pretty consistent, all things considered. They’ve won the games they’re supposed to win. They’ve had some close calls. They probably, frankly, should have beaten Alabama now and LSU last year, but didn’t. But they’ve picked up some big wins, like the UNC win its first year, they gave Notre Dame everything they could handle in the Gator Bowl, and, frankly probably should have held on in that game.
“Shane has clearly raised the floor at South Carolina. I think everything that he has done recruiting-wise has taken a step forward. I really think South Carolina’s positioned to be a player under Shane. Look, is South Carolina going to win 10-11, games and roll along like the Alabama machine was under [Nick] Saban? Maybe not. But I do think that if you told me that, more years than not, Shane is going to win somewhere between seven and nine games. I think I totally buy that. ... I think they’ve hit a turning point. It’s fair for us to expect South Carolina to be somewhere in that seven-plus win range, more years than not, under Shane.”
Alyssa Lang, ESPN: “Coming off of 2023 and the disappointment of ‘23, I remember he talked about that senior class not being able to play in a bowl game and the guys who stuck around for the wintertime and into spring saying, ‘You should be preparing for a bowl game. You should be coming off of a bowl win, and we didn’t even get that chance.’ That was a really bad taste, not only in the mouths of the players and the staff, but the fan base. Obviously, you want to win. So for 2024 to go the way that it did, in an under-the-radar way, nobody was picking South Carolina to do anything last year. South Carolina fans knew, in a way, what they were getting with LaNorris Sellers, but I’m not sure many knew what they were getting defensively. So as LaNorris was able to kind of come along and settle in, you have a defense that jumps out of the gate and the Kentucky game, I would argue, set the tone for the season.”
Jordan Kaye contributed to the reporting of this article.
