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.