Sadly...yes. Gamecock fan my whole life. Student Fall 78 through Spring 82. But, I didn't join this board until after I retired!If I interpret your handle correctly, you have witnessed that history, as have I.
Here's Some Fun Speculation About our Football Job
- Thread starter KingWard
- Start date
Other than the Coliseum, which was McGuire's baby, Dietzel did do a good job with facilities. Otherwise, it was all talk with "Pepsodent Paul." Thank you for mentioning GROD. I still resent him pulling the wool over everyone's eyes and getting us out of the ACC.
ACC championships in both football and basketball when I was in school.
Some of us on here are pretty old.
Lou Holtz South Carolina Introductory News Conference:
Fan to Lou: I've been going to Carolina football games since the 1950s. What do you think of that?
Lou: I think you've been seeing a lot of bad football.
Fan to Lou: I've been going to Carolina football games since the 1950s. What do you think of that?
Lou: I think you've been seeing a lot of bad football.
Beamer is doing all that he can do. He got as much as he could from the portal. I think that whoever wrote that article is an idiot!!Warning: strong click-bait potential.
Mike Norvell Will Be the South Carolina Gamecocks Head Coach in 2025
When first taking over for the Florida State Seminoles, Mike Norvell came into a situation where the standards were high, but they weren’t being met. This included three straight consecutive years …twsn.net
Yes. That is why I do not buy the "schedule excuse" for 2024. And I have posted numerous times why that schedule is not as difficult as some want to make it out to be. Let me just say this: we are not playing 12 opponents who have Georgia-like talent thus resulting in a wide gap of player-talent disadvantage for us.
Consequently, Beamer better not produce similar results to 2023 this coming season. If he does, then 2025 will be a "make or break" season for him.
The schedule very well could turn out to be not as hard as it looks, but it is a really tough schedule. Playing at Bama and at OU back-to-back is brutal.
7 of our 8 SEC opponents are ranked in ESPN's early top 25. Clemson is also ranked.
We'll see how it actually plays out, of course, but on paper it's a really tough schedule.
I thought about that too before I posted. We will never know. But after previously ushering out a winning coach (Carlen), my thinking is that we would have found a rational for keeping JoMo.
That's how people are looking at the schedule: on paper. But if people took a deeper dive into our schedule, they would see that we play Ole Miss and Missouri at home. We play a first-year Head Coach-led Texas A&M team at home where we won 2 years ago. We beat Kentucky for each of the past 2 seasons. And we beat Clemson at their place 2 years ago. If Beamer produces a mediocre season in 2024 when most of the players will be his recruits in his 4th season, I believe he will have some explaining to do.
Still believe that he has until the 2026 season unless he loses the clubhouse like Muschamp did. They will want leave the decision to the new AD to select his own coach.
That would be a save and win for Beamer, for sure. If he proves to be a Nepo Baby, hired because of who his Dad is and accomplished, it will be a loss for the fans.
Thank about 100 former players, Caslen and a couple of his Board cronies for that. Caslen didn't want to pay the buyouts of a couple of coaches already on staff, and didn't want to pay a lot for a more proven coach and the staff he would want to bring in. The player support solidified the decision for Beamer over Chadwell....both of which would have been cheap hires.
Looking at what Chadwell has accomplished, winning big everywhere he has been, and that Beamer's recruiting has been no better (actually worse) than previous coaches, the Beamer hire might prove to be a monumental screw up for the ages. To paraphrase Don King: Only at South Carolina.
May be true. I've heard that Chadwell doesn't interview well....and his personality wouldn't seem to impress Caslen. Caslen had a huge ego and he and FM got along well.
Many a winning coach did not have good personalities. A couple of our past coaches, Carlen and Morrison, were lacking in that area. Bobby Knight was like that. Eddie Fogler was like that. Brad Scott on the other hand had a great personality. The best hires don't always check all the boxes. The won-loss record is always the bottom line to me.
I definitely don't disagree with you. At this point, though, all we can do is look at it on paper and speculate. The "experts" are ranking all of those teams well ahead of us at the moment.
Personally I think LSU is very beatable, Missouri will not be as good, and we're even with Kentucky.
I think we will surprise people. Maybe it's because I hope that Beamer is a "chip off the old block" and thus can outcoach the other guy. He is going to have to because he is not proving to be a strong recruiter.
We have some strong recruiters though.....Lucas, Gray, Teasley and to a lesser extent White. Not sure about the new RB and WR coaches yet.
I hope we can move up in the rankings because right now we are 12th in the 16-team SEC. That does not mean that the guys listed there are not strong recruiters. It might mean that the other teams have just as strong or stronger recruiters. Ranked 12th is not a good sign for the future. So we have to move up. If we don't, then we have to hope that Shane has the coaching chops of Frank. I don't think that Frank was a great recruiter. I think he was pretty good at that phase of the game, bringing in the occasional blue-chippers and surrounding them with solid players. I think that Frank though excelled in the coaching side of the game, kind of like Carlen, Morrison and Spurrier. Time will tell.
Your first 2 sentences hardly sounds like a full endorsement. Comes off as apologetic.
If Shane has the coaching chops of Frank, that could be the best thing for us. I know....that's a "Duh" statement. But, if you think about it, ,we have never been a recruiting powerhouse. Richard Bell, Sparky Woods, Brad Scott and Will Muschamp were all reputedly strong recruiters. All got fired. Carlen, Morrison, Holtz and Spurrier made their reputations from a "coaching" standpoint. Yes, it was not always great under the later 4. But I believe if you compare the tenures of the later 4 to the other 4, we had way more success under Carlen, Morrison, Holtz and Spurrier.
Has Beamer ever "outcoached" anybody? Maybe you can refresh my memory.
In the Mayo bowl he did catch UNC by surprise with the Joyner and Bell thing. I'll give him that. If that was his idea.
Carlen and Morrison were winning coaches? They were slightly over .500.......
Yeah, but if this job were a golf course, it'd have a course rating of about 75 and a slope of about 150, so .500 here is like .600 somewhere else.
Everyone here is always starting from scratch; we've never had one successful coach directly succeed another successful coach that I can recall.Yeah, but if this job were a golf course, it'd have a course rating of about 75 and a slope of about 150, so .500 here is like .600 somewhere else.
I would guess some on here would mention Spurrier following Holtz, however the argument against that is that Holtz had a losing record at USC.
Some on here are too young to remember or know that the number 7 was the scarlet number of Carolina football for years. A lot was made of the fact that Carolina football could not win more than 7 games in a season. We hired a young proven, successful FBS Head Coach (Carlen) who did it twice at Carolina. Shortly after, he was fired for non-football reasons. Richard Bell, who had the reputation of being a strong recruiter was promoted and fired after one season. We then hired another young, proven successful FBS Head Coach, Joe Morrison. He led Carolina to their first Top 25 seasons ever, at the time, to numbers 11 and 15th in the nation. Shortly after, he died of a heart attack. Who knows what would have happened if Carlen and Morrison coached Carolina for decades (that's assuming Morrison would have survived the steroid issue; my guess is he would have since we already cut short a successful Head Coach in Carlen). We then hire 2 Head Coaches who had never been a FBS Head Coach, Woods and Scott. Both came in with reputations of being great recruiters. Both were fired. We then hired proven, successful FBS Head Coaches in Holtz and Spurrier. Lou produced the first Top 25 seasons (11th and 13th) since the Morrison era. Steve produced the first Top 10 teams (doing it 3 times) in Carolina history. The problem with Lou and Steve is that they were not young. They were near the end of their careers. They were not going to lead us for decades. We replaced Spurrier with Muschamp. He too came in with the reputation of being a great recruiter. Well, we all know how that ended.
We hired Shane Beamer, who too came in with the reputation of being a strong recruiter. He is young but, has never produced a successful program prior to coming to Carolina. In fact, he has never been a Head Coach of even a pee wee football team, much less a FBS team. His prior 3 recruiting classes finished 13th, 7th and 10th in the SEC. His current recruiting class is 12th in the now 16-team SEC. I know some will point to NIL as handicapping Beamer's recruiting. But Clemson is not that much better if any than us NIL-wise. Yet, their current recruiting class is ranked 4th in the NATION. If Beamer is going to succeed at Carolina, he will have to do "more with less". He is not getting the job done in recruiting. The numbers bear that out. He is going to have to get the job done from a "coaching" angle. This is the season to do that, his 4th. Drinkwitz and Kiffin produced Top 10 teams at Missouri and Ole Miss respectively in their 4th seasons. Missouri and Ole Miss did not and do not have Top 10 talent. Missouri last year beat Ohio State. Ole Miss last year beat LSU and Penn State. Does anyone believe that Missouri had better talent than Ohio State? Get real. Does anyone believe that Ole Miss had better talent than LSU and Penn State? Get real again. I'm not saying that I expect a Top 10 team produced this season. But, another mediocre season in Year 4 of Beamer's program as happened in Year 3 will be unacceptable. Beamer made new hires after last season because what happened on the field was unacceptable to him too. Hopefully he made good hires.
We hired Shane Beamer, who too came in with the reputation of being a strong recruiter. He is young but, has never produced a successful program prior to coming to Carolina. In fact, he has never been a Head Coach of even a pee wee football team, much less a FBS team. His prior 3 recruiting classes finished 13th, 7th and 10th in the SEC. His current recruiting class is 12th in the now 16-team SEC. I know some will point to NIL as handicapping Beamer's recruiting. But Clemson is not that much better if any than us NIL-wise. Yet, their current recruiting class is ranked 4th in the NATION. If Beamer is going to succeed at Carolina, he will have to do "more with less". He is not getting the job done in recruiting. The numbers bear that out. He is going to have to get the job done from a "coaching" angle. This is the season to do that, his 4th. Drinkwitz and Kiffin produced Top 10 teams at Missouri and Ole Miss respectively in their 4th seasons. Missouri and Ole Miss did not and do not have Top 10 talent. Missouri last year beat Ohio State. Ole Miss last year beat LSU and Penn State. Does anyone believe that Missouri had better talent than Ohio State? Get real. Does anyone believe that Ole Miss had better talent than LSU and Penn State? Get real again. I'm not saying that I expect a Top 10 team produced this season. But, another mediocre season in Year 4 of Beamer's program as happened in Year 3 will be unacceptable. Beamer made new hires after last season because what happened on the field was unacceptable to him too. Hopefully he made good hires.
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It is easier now to have a certain number of wins (say 8) now than it was then.
Absolutely.
I'm not sure what the expectations are for Beamer by most fans. My expectations are for him to produce Top 20 teams annually with an occasional Top 10 team. He is young. Thus, if he has the coaching chops, those expectations are doable at Carolina.
Holtz was essentially done after Year Three, sad to say.
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Think Lou wanted and expected Skip to succeed him. It was for the best that did not happen. I cannot think of any son of a legendary coach ever succeeding.