Shane Beamer takes issue with ‘conspiracy’ about play calls for LaNorris Sellers
South Carolina fans, critics and general outsiders alike have taken to social media with complaints of the lack LaNorris Sellers’ utilization in the Gamecocks run game in recent weeks.
Shane Beamer let it be known Tuesday that’s he’s aware of what he called a “conspiracy” that Sellers has been told to run the ball less often — and he doesn’t agree with it.
“I don’t know what conspiracy theories are out there, but I’ve never said, and no one in this building has ever said, ‘We need to run the quarterback less,’ ” Beamer said. “I hear all this crap about they’re not running the quarterback enough or something. We’re calling the same god-dang plays we called last year, guys.”
Sellers has logged fewer rushing attempts through the first three games of this season compared to last, but the sample size is too small to really gather any conclusions.
Sellers has 24 rush attempts through three games this season, though it’s really through 2.5 games since he left the Vanderbilt game early with an injury. In the first three games he played last season — vs. Old Dominion, Kentucky and LSU (though he left that game with an injury) — Sellers totaled 40 rushing attempts. More than half of the carries in his first three games last season came in the 2024 opener against ODU (22 attempts).
Since taking over as the starter for South Carolina last year, Sellers has had double-digit carries in all but three of the games he’s played. Those outliers were against Kentucky in 2024 (eight rushes), S.C. State two weeks ago (eight) and the shortened outing against Vanderbilt last weekend (three).
“I would say every week we want to do what we need to do to win the football game,” Beamer said. “We ran him the other night. We ran him against Virginia Tech. We ran him against South Carolina State. Teams aren’t dumb, either.
“In our mind, last week, we wanted to get the ball out of the Vanderbilt quarterback’s hands on some of those zone reads. And these teams we play, they have good coaches, and a lot of them are going to say, ‘Don’t let 16 carry the ball’ because we’ve seen what happens when he carries the ball.”
The question of the logic behind when Sellers should and shouldn’t run has been brought up to offensive coordinator Mike Shula in press conferences more than once this season. Shula in the preseason essentially said he wasn’t aiming to reel in Sellers as a runner, so to speak, but was looking for him to improve from a decision-making standpoint on when he should run. Shula made a similar comment after the Virginia Tech game.
“I kind of said all along that he’s a talented runner,” Shula said on Sept. 3. “… But as far as him running the football on his own, we kind of want him running it because he wants to as opposed to, I didn’t quite see the read correctly, so I just took off and ran. That’s our goal of him getting better.”
Perhaps those remarks have been misconstrued as the coaching staff telling Sellers to not run as much. That’s not the case, Beamer emphasized Tuesday.
“We’re not saying we need to run LaNorris less,” Beamer said. “I know there’s like this conspiracy theory going back to the bowl game that we … don’t run LaNorris as much. We’re running LaNorris plenty. Some of those are reads where LaNorris can hand it or pull it and keep it. Some of those are RPOs, where he can run it or throw it. And there’s some of those called, designed runs that he runs.”
Sellers’ status for South Carolina’s matchup with Missouri on Saturday is up in the air. On3 reported Sellers was being monitored for a concussion. Beamer said he was optimistic about Sellers’ status for this weekend but has declined to share specifics thus far, opting to point reporters in the direction of the SEC student-athlete availability report that will be released Wednesday night.
Regardless of whether Sellers plays or not, Beamer said the Gamecocks are going to do whatever it takes to beat Missouri — including run with whoever is playing quarterback on Saturday.
“So we’re we’re doing what we got to do to win football games each week, and if that means running LaNorris then we’re going to run LaNorris — or Luke, or Air, or Cutter, or Jimmy Francis, or Brandon Cunningham, or whoever we’ve got in there playing quarterback,” Beamer said.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 4:00 PM.
