Is this becoming Muschamp Part 2?
- Thread starter rockingamecock
- Start date
Records aren't that different. Beamer has the 2022 wins over UT and Clemson and then last year's 6-game winning streak keeping him afloat right now. Muschamp's only real highlight was the win over UGA that was forgotten by the end of a crappy season.
There are parallels. Beamer's good season was in his 4th year, instead of third for Muschamp.
So it'll just be a longer version of the same story, imo.
So it'll just be a longer version of the same story, imo.
The sad reality is that with a 4-win season on tap this year, the bar has been set artificially low. If we somehow got 6 wins next year, it'll be argued as progress and reason to retain Beamer for a 7th season.
I know I'm beating a dead horse and probably going against the conventional board wisdom but if you look at my argument in very broad terms: I think it's quite obvious Beamer can and does get our team "up" for games. Especially the big games it seems. We are almost always very competitive - save for the random buzzsaw games (Vandy) (Ole Miss last year).
And he's doing it with less talent than other teams. That's recruiting but you gotta win to attract better talent. Catch-22.
Seems to me we're close but not even Saban could surround himself with crappy assistants and win in this league. Our Defense is fine. Clayton is good. It's the offensive side of the ball, OL coach, QB coach, and OC that is our glaring weakness. It's obvious and it shows. Bottom line: the AD needs to force Beamer to bring in new assistants on that side of the ball and we might be ok going forward, sooner rather than later. Or, we can just fire everybody and re-start the 5 year rebuild crap like we always do.
And he's doing it with less talent than other teams. That's recruiting but you gotta win to attract better talent. Catch-22.
Seems to me we're close but not even Saban could surround himself with crappy assistants and win in this league. Our Defense is fine. Clayton is good. It's the offensive side of the ball, OL coach, QB coach, and OC that is our glaring weakness. It's obvious and it shows. Bottom line: the AD needs to force Beamer to bring in new assistants on that side of the ball and we might be ok going forward, sooner rather than later. Or, we can just fire everybody and re-start the 5 year rebuild crap like we always do.
I think that would be a possibility under the old college football model. Under the new model, which I'm sure Donati understands, every year is a different team and there's really no such thing as building from year to year or "making progress." A 6-6 season next year would simply stand on its own as an underwhelming year in which we likely went 3-6 in the SEC. It would mean two bad years in a row and 3 bad years in the last 4.
A more interesting question, I think, is what a 7-5 season next year would mean. 8-4 around here is, unquestionably, considered a "good" year and would mean a winning record in the SEC next year. But I wonder how Donati would view a 7-5 season on the heels of what is shaping up to be a 4-5 win season this year.
Most fans still think in the ways of old regarding coaches and building a team. They haven't had time to accept the new reality. The big difference for ADs is the coaches' salaries. When a coach is making $8million a year, he needs to produce NOW. I think this new reality is what is driving all of the coach firings this year.
When coaches made doctor level money, the ADs could be more patient. Now that they are making large corporation CEO money, the timeline for producing is much shorter.
Records are about the same. Shane has the upset victories to hang his hat on and beating Clemson more (though they aren't as good as teams Muschamp faced).
A win over Clemson is a win over Clemson, but yeah, the Clemson teams during Muschamp's era were absolute juggernauts. Any of those teams would absolutely smoke any team we've had under Beamer. And that's not a knock on Beamer. Those teams were simply loaded at every single position on the field on both sides of the ball.
SC is similar to Indiana but has better history. Indiana struck gold with their hire and SC didn't. Beamer has a strong work ethic but has limited coaching abilities and needs strong coordinators. Never being one I think hinders his ability to make good choices on a routine basis when choosing one. Beamer will try harder than most but in the end SC doesn't provide the top notch staffs to get them in the playoffs especially when most times they have a talent disadvantage against the teams in their conference.
His recruiting is no better than other coaches we've had. Development on the offensive since of the ball has been curiously and definitively bad all 5 years. That's not the trait of a good coach.
"Recruiter" was Beamer's calling card. It was supposedly his strength. Muschamp, Spurrier and Holtz all recruited better than he has. USC got sold a "bill of goods".
The only defense I would have of him is the introduction of NIL. How would his recruiting have been if we were not paying players? We'll never know.
But on the flip side, the truth is, our recruiting rankings are about the same before and after NIL, so I'd be hard pressed to argue NIL had that major of an impact.
Almost all coaching hires a roll of the dice. There was no indication Cignetti would do what he has at IU. Proven coordinators have gone bust as head coaches. G5 head coaches have gone bust as P4 head coaches. A position coach has become a 2-time title winning head coach. OSU hired an FCS head coach and he turned them into a dominant program. Successful P4 head coaches have jumped programs and then washed out at the next program. You simply never can tell.
Very rarely does a sure thing come along. One is out there right now: Franklin. I go back to our situation in trying to take that next step as a program. If we had a laser focus on winning, we do what we needed to get Franklin.
Otherwise, we'll just be rolling the dice yet again next year.
Agreed. There is no sure thing. The idea is to minimize the risk. Grab a candidate with the best chance to be successful.
Anyone who points to one type of candidate as not being a sure thing is being disingenuous. None of them are a sure thing.
I think there is ONE sure, sure thing: Meyer. He's won big everywhere he's been and has a comical .853 career win percentage. I'm confident if we hired him, he'd have us in title contention in 5 years. At least in the discussion. Whatever else anyone wants to say about him, the man wins. Bowling Green, Utah, UF (who can't buy a winner since he left), OSU. Wherever he is, he wins.
He's my one caveat to the "no sure thing".
I can't say Franklin is a SURE thing, but I'm quite confident he'd be a solid 8/9 win coach here.
You talking about Ryan Day? Everything about his background indicated he would be successful. (Mentored under Chip Kelly)
Hard to argue with Meyer. And we have done well with pulling guys out of retirement.
I see Franklin as a solid choice. Not a title contender, but would make a solidly consistent team. At this point, it would be nice to have the problem of winning seasons but "not getting over the hump".
Meyer would NEVER take the job at SC. He only goes to places that are already loaded with talent and have built in recruiting advantages. On top of that, he is more than willing to look the other way regarding off field behavior of players if they are talented. He wins but he hasn't really ever built a program. When Tebow and the crazy talent left UF, Meyer suddenly had a heart condition and needed to spend more time with family. Apparently, one year with family was enough and he recovered completely from his heart condition because he took the Ohio State job a year later.
Meyer is also a POS as a human.
Didn't specifically advocate for him here. Only that he's the one sure thing when it comes to head coaches. It might be a little off to suggest he only goes to places loaded with talent. He did start off at Bowling Green and Utah, not exactly talent hotbeds, and won there. UF was good when he arrived, but he made them dominant almost overnight and they haven't been able to come close to duplicating his success since he departed. OSU was 6-7 the year before he arrived. They were 12-0 his first year.
Frankly, I don't care too much about the nice guy deal. We have one of the nicest guys in coaching right now. No, Urban would never take this job, and has shown no inclination to get back into coaching, but in a hypothetical world, if we had a shot at him and passed, we'd be the biggest dumb dumbs of all time.
Completely agree with your final statement. I believe the same to be true of Franklin (as I think you do as well) but they won't pursue either. I see this the same as Richt in 2015, make him tell you no. But they won't do that (On that subject: Idc about a new AD until he shows he won't let the BoT screw anything up, it doesn't matter than he's not Tanner). I don't get some of the hate for Franklin as a coach on this board. If his time at Vandy and/or PSU was spent at SC then he would have one of the most successful tenure's, and the most successful tenure here. He's not the type of coach to pass on.
How often are coaches in their early 50s, with a career .700 win percentage, on the open market?
Not often. My opinion is we should take a chance on a proven HC from a smaller school. If not this year then next year. We are not going to win the coaching sweepstakes.
Okay, well we are not firing Beamer this year and he will have a job in a few months - probably LSU.
Which is why we'll never take that next step.
It was Muschamp's 2nd year that he took the team to 9-4 (5-3), but his and Beamer's 4th season with the same record is actually substantively different:
In the 2017 season, USC only played two (2) single top 25 ranked opponents at the time of the game - #2 Georgia and #4 Clemson - and lost both. They finished ranked at the same spots at the end of the season - USC did beat NC State to open the season, and the Wildcats did sneak into the final top 25 at 23rd - they were unranked to start the season. They beat unranked Michigan in the Outback bowl to get that 9th win, but the schedule was perceived to be so weak overall that season that we finished unranked in either poll, the only 9-win season in the program's history to finish unranked.
In 2024 Beamer led the Gamecocks against seven (7) ranked opponents during the regular season - #10 LSU, #12 Ole Miss, #7 Alabama, #10 Texas A&M, #24 Vanderbilt, #23 Missouri, and #12 Clemson - going 4-3 in those games. LSU, TAMU, and Vanderbilt would fall out by the final rankings. The Gamecocks had a chance for a 10-win season but lost the Citrus Bowl to #20 Illinois, who would finish 16th in the final poll due to that win.
Due to this much tougher schedule - plus the fact that the Gamecocks closed out the regular season with a 6-game win streak that included all of those wins over ranked opponents, the Gamecocks rose as high as 15th before falling to 19th in their final ranking. They spent much of the regular season in the poll rankings, while the 2017 team never broke into the rankings despite spending a week in the CFP rankings with a 8-3 record before losing to Clemson and dropping out. They were in the "receiving votes" group for several weeks, but much of that time the votes were in single digits.
So both seasons finished with similar conference and overall records, with Muschamp's season even earning a bowl win to Beamer's not. But how each season got to those final records are a good bit different......
And he's not playing with SEC talent. I think they have like five or six 4* and zero 5*.
Put him at an SEC school and he'll playing an SEC schedule with SEC talent.
Don't forget the large number of assistants lining up for the program.
I've said it before and, I'll say it again: if Virginia Tech offers Beamer the pay he is making at South Carolina, he's going, going, gone.