South Carolina HC Shane Beamer puts the rest of college football on notice with bold statement
South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer is feeling pretty confident right now with his team in the midst of a five game winning streak. Just how confident is Beamer? Confident enough to suggest that his team will be in the College Football Playoff race on an annual basis moving forward. “This (CFP race) is […]
South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer is feeling pretty confident right now with his team in the midst of a five game winning streak.
Just how confident is Beamer?
Confident enough to suggest that his team will be in the College Football Playoff race on an annual basis moving forward.
“This (CFP race) is fun and exciting to be a part of," said Beamer on Tuesday ahead of South Carolina's regular season finale against Clemson. "And to me, this is going to be a yearly occurrence. Like, we’re not going anywhere, our program. We’re only continuing to ascend. And Dabo (Swinney) and Clemson have shown they’re not going anywhere."
"And I think a battle of ranked Carolina vs. ranked Clemson, with playoff implications, in my mind is going to be a yearly occurrence around here," added Beamer. "So everybody better get used to it.”
South Carolina is 8-3 through 11 games this season, which means they need to beat Clemson and they need quite a bit of help to reach the 12-team playoff.
It seems unlikely that the Gamecocks will sneak into the tournament — and that's probably a relief for several of the teams that are expected to be included in the inaugural 12-team playoff.
South Carolina is playing good football right now. And outside of a tough loss against Ole Miss (it seems like every SEC team has a "tough loss" to be fair), they've really played good football all season.
In fact, the Gamecocks are a blown call against LSU and a fumble against Alabama away from being 9-1 right now. They're undoubtedly a playoff caliber team even if they're unlikely be one of the 12 teams included.
Beamer has been the butt of jokes at times thanks to his quirky demeanor and his tendency to get snappy with reporters, but he's done a fantastic job at South Carolina this season. After going 5-7 last season, Beamer has the program on the cusp of its first 10-win season since Steve Spurrier led the Gamecocks to 11 wins in 2013.
South Carolina will need to continue to add elite talent from the NCAA transfer portal (as is the case for most contenders) for Beamer's bold statement to be accurate. But based on what we've seen so far this season, it doesn't seem outrageous to suggest that the Gamecocks are going to be a playoff contender on a yearly basis. That doesn't mean they'll make the playoff every year, but they should at least be in the conversation thanks to the job that Beamer has done.
