Shane Beamer explains plan to handle high expectations, keep same mindset

South Carolina finished the 2024 season ranked No. 19 in the AP Top 25, a good year but with a flat finish after a bowl loss to Illinois. Entering the 2025 campaign, coach Shane Beamer has a squad that is even higher ranked.

The Gamecocks checked in at No. 13 in the preseason top 25. With that comes plenty of expectations, but Beamer and his bunch are embracing them.

“Yeah, I mean I’d rather be ranked high and have those expectations than not,” Beamer said. “I mean as a coach, when you’re not ranked high like we were last year, it’s great because you can use that as fuel and motivation. But we want to be a team that’s consistently ranked high in the top 10, top 15 going into every single season because it means we did some good stuff the year before and we’re expected to do stuff again.”

Shane Beamer hasn’t fully gotten South Carolina where he’d like to see it as a program long term. That will come if the program keeps building, he said.

“The best teams in the country year in and year out, they’re in those preseason rankings every year,” he said. “But those teams, and what we’re continuing to convey to our guys, and we’ve been talking about it since the beginning, is all that matters is just what we do from this point forward.”

Starting fresh is a great idea, and South Carolina will want to do that anyway. The last time out was a frustrating affair, with some bad blood between Shane Beamer and Bret Bielema and a dull thud to the season ending.

That said, many of the positives remain for the Gamecocks. Certainly the most important one.

“If you had a good season the year before and your quarterback returns, you’re probably going to be ranked pretty high,” Shane Beamer pointed out. “Now do I think we’re a good team? Heck yeah. And we also have a lot of work to do, but as you saw last year, or every year, there’s teams that are ranked in that preseason top 10 or top 15 and won’t be at the end of the season. And there’s a lot of teams that aren’t right now that will be at the end of the season, as well.

“So just making sure our guys understand every year’s different. We didn’t really listen to it when everybody was telling us how terrible we were — maybe a little bit. But we don’t need to listen to it now when everybody’s telling us how great we are.”

And don’t be surprised if Shane Beamer still pulls the disrespected card out every now and then. These days, there’s so much information out there it’s easy to find some negative spin.

“You say all right, we’re ranked 13th, and we are, but I also know there’s some prominent media members that put out their own little polls that we’re not in their top 25,” Beamer said. “So we’ve still got a lot to prove. And I know our players feel that and understand that too.”