Shane Beamer’s seen enough of his South Carolina team’s three-win season to know where the Gamecocks will be this time next year: in the thick of the playoff hunt.
“We’re going to be sitting here (this time next November) watching the playoff rankings to see where we are in the ranking show,” Beamer told reporters this week. “And we’re going to be firmly in the mix for a College Football Playoff berth.”
And Howard Dean yelled, Yeah!
There’s no point in an SEC coach who’ll be entering his sixth season in 2026 asking for patience or trying to water down expectations, so go ahead and call your shot. It’s win or be fired, so Beamer might as well preach from the pulpit that he’s going to win, and maybe a few recruits or transfers will hear him and believe it.
Credit Beamer for making it this long. Assuming he lasts into 2026, he’ll join Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier as South Carolina’s only coaches to reach Year 6 since the Gamecocks started competing in the SEC in 1992. Sparky Woods, Brad Scott and Will Muschamp — all of them were fired in their fifth season.
It’s not that the Gamecocks cannot achieve success. It’s that they’ve been unable to sustain it. Holtz won 17 games in a two-year span before backtracking. Muschamp produced one 9-4 season, which Beamer matched last year.
Peaks and valleys, that’s South Carolina’s existence inside the SEC. Only Spurrier, the best coach in program history, prolonged the peak. The Head Ball Coach won 42 games during one four-year stretch that doesn’t get its proper due among the truly remarkable feats of the past quarter-century.
If Beamer goes belly-up, I’m skeptical that whomever South Carolina hires to replace him will outperform him. But this is a vibes business, and consecutive bad seasons would call for a vibes change.
Beamer didn’t help himself last week. He talked tough during an in-game interview while his Gamecocks surged to a lead on No. 3 Texas A&M. His first-half demeanor was that of a guy acting as if he’d just won on the oval at Darlington Speedway.
Never mind that two quarters remained. The Gamecocks came out in the second half playing like they thought they had the game won.
Who could blame them, if they took their cues from Beamer?
I don’t mean to mock Beamer — or maybe I do — because he came closer to beating the Aggies than anyone else. Coming close won’t be celebrated, though. Being on the losing end of Texas A&M’s biggest comeback in school history will be the narrative that lingers.
Beamer gets his guys up for big games — for a second consecutive season, they pushed Alabama to the brink but failed to shove the Tide off the cliff — and his teams are usually good for a signature moment every November. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the Gamecocks beat Clemson during Thanksgiving week. Given the Tigers’ own flop this season, maybe that doesn’t count as a signature, but a rivalry win against Clemson is a rivalry win against Clemson.
“We’re not going to go through this thing again, and we’re going to go finish this season out the right way,” Beamer said.
He’s right. South Carolina’s not going through this again with Beamer. He’ll either turn it around in 2026, or the Gamecocks will be hiring his replacement this time next year.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.