Shane Beamer confronts a career-defining test at South Carolina.
Matt Zemek, 16powers.com
When South Carolina rocked Tennessee and conquered Clemson at the end of the 2022 college football season, Shane Beamer had reason to believe his Gamecock program could make the climb to the upper third of the SEC. Notice we didn’t say the very top tier of the conference. It takes a lot to be at the summit in the conference, alongside Georgia and Alabama and being able to play ball with SEC newcomers Texas and Oklahoma, two traditional powers with huge brand names and all of the recruiting advantages which come with top-tier stature. No, South Carolina was not about to be a top-10 or top-15 program, but being in the top third of a 16-team SEC – basically No. 5 or No. 6 in the conference – did not seem like a fantasy after the way the Gamecocks ended their 2022 run. Hammering the Vols and then dusting off Dabo Swinney sent a message to the rest of the national college football community, beyond the Deep South: The Gameocks were coming. They had the mindset, they had the athletes. They had the ability to do something special. That’s how 2022 ended. There was reason to hope this program could take off and approach the Steve Spurrier golden years of 2010 through 2013, which produced an SEC East Division championship and three 11-win seasons.
The 2023 season contained so much promise for South Carolina. Instead, it turned into an absolute nightmare for Shane Beamer. The Gamecocks finished 5-7, failing to make a bowl game. What was even more embarrassing is that two of their five wins came against the FCS teams on their schedule. South Carolina defeated only three FBS teams in 2023. It was nothing less than a disaster after the grand flourish at the end of 2022. What accounted for such a dramatic regression? One answer dwarfed everything else.
The South Carolina offensive line simply didn’t make the cut last year. Spencer Rattler did not have a great season for the Gamecocks, but that was mostly a product of the fact that he was under fire for a majority of the season. Rattler did not have the clean pocket other quarterbacks had at LSU, Missouri, Georgia, and other SEC teams which won large numbers of ballgames in 2023. South Carolina did not give Rattler the time he needed. The offensive line did not facilitate a running game which could take pressure off Rattler and also bring defenders into the tackle box, which subsequently prevented South Carolina’s receivers from operating in more favorable positions with more space.
There were occasional moments when the South Carolina offense put the pieces together and made them fit in 2023, but much of the season was spent laboring through difficult games in which the Gamecocks failed to score 20 points. In half of the team’s 12 games, South Carolina couldn’t put 20 on the board. In a seventh game, the Gamecocks scored exactly 20 points. That’s just not going to get it done in the modern era of college football. In the 1970s, it might have been fine, but not in today’s age of spread passing, RPOs, and all sorts of offensive innovations which make it easier for teams to score and harder for teams to play elite defense.
Now Shane Beamer is without Spencer Rattler. He just blew a big opportunity to advance and elevate the South Carolina program. Beamer is back in the uncomfortable spot he inhabited midway through the 2022 season, before those breakthrough wins over Tennessee and Clemson. South Carolina has to start over in a very real sense. Everyone within the program has to win back the fan base, and the team has to once again show it belongs on the big stage in the SEC. Getting the offensive line fixed is the obvious priority, not only because the unit was so bad last season, but also because Rattler is not there, and new quarterback LaNorris Sellers will need all the protection he can get. Sellers has not accumulated a large number of live-game reps, so he will need to be eased into the season. Getting as much strong line play as possible is a goal in itself, but it takes on more importance because the quarterback does not have a lot of experience and might need to lean on his teammates early in the campaign. Can Shane Beamer guide this team and this offense through such a precarious situation? If he can, he will reaffirm the idea that he is the man to lead this program, but if he doesn’t, fresh doubts about his abilities – which surfaced in 2023 – will only intensify in 2024. This is the rocky and uncertain ground Beamer and Gamecocks stand on as they prepare for the new season in the SEC.
The schedule for the Gamecocks in the new 16-team SEC is – predictably – a gauntlet. South Carolina has to deal with LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Missouri, and – outside the ACC – Clemson. A road trip to Kentucky won’t be a piece of cake. The Gamecocks should certainly win four games this season, but those eight games just mentioned will be very hard to win. The Gamecocks will need to pick off at least two of them if they are to make a bowl game.
Alabama, Oklahoma and Clemson are road trips, so that increases the degree of difficulty for each of those three games. The goal for this team, if we are being reasonable and realistic, is to split four home games versus LSU, Ole Miss, A&M, and Missouri. Of those four, LSU and A&M are probably the more winnable contests. LSU had a horrible defense last season, particularly in the secondary, and might wobble just enough to give the Gamecocks a real opening when they meet in 2024. Texas A&M should be good under coach Mike Elko, but the Aggie offense hasn’t been a bastion of total dependability in recent years and might be sluggish enough to keep the Gamecocks close.
The margins, however, for South Carolina football are very small. That much is obvious. Shane Beamer built something in 2022. It got torn down in 2023. Now, can he build back a winner in Columbia? Skeptics are waiting to pounce. It is up to Beamer to silence them.
