Shane Beamer on South Carolina 2025 season: 'You want high expectations'

Expectations were low for the South Carolina Gamecocks going into 2024, with the media ranking them 13th in the SEC preseason poll. Head coach Shane Beamer ended up doing an excellent job and far exceeded those expectations to get his Gamecocks to the edge of the College Football Playoff.

Coming off that strong season, expectations are much higher in 2025 for South Carolina. That’s not something Beamer wants to shy away from.

“You want high expectations,” Shane Beamer said. “Our players and the people in our program I believe embrace those high expectations and understand that with those expectations, you have to prepare the right way, that it doesn’t just happen. Because there’s plenty of teams, and we’ve talked about it a lot as a team, there’s plenty of teams every year that have high expectations and fall well short of those expectations, and it’s usually coming out of the gate as well. So, understanding that there’s a lot of expectations, and rightfully so at our place, you want that as a coach, where there are high expectations within the media, with the fan base.”

South Carolina is coming off a 9-4 season where they went 5-3 in SEC play. They were one of six SEC teams to finish with that record in conference play. It also saw the Gamecocks win their final six games of the regular season, including on the road against Clemson, amid a breakout year for quarterback LaNorris Sellers.

“But making sure, too, that’s all talk that last year at this time, nobody thought we would win nine games and be in the mix for a Playoff spot at the end of the season. This year, we need to make sure we do a great job of not sitting here listening to everybody tell us how good we’re supposed to be and understanding the work that goes into it. But certainly beats the alternative of everybody picking you to be dead last, or anything like that. I like the expectations of being up there higher.”

There are a few different ways that coaches can handle these preseason expectations. At South Carolina, Beamer wants his team to understand those expectations and not run away from them. Certainly, he knows that even if the expectations make sense they’re not a guarantee of success.

“Definitely don’t run away from it. I would say, embrace it in that, hey, you know, people, we should be good. I mean, we’ve got a really talented quarterback coming back. We’ve got a really good pass rusher coming back. We’re really young, especially on defense and at wide receiver, but we’ve got talented players. The players that come into our program, they come into this program expecting to win at a high level. So, certainly, we embrace that,” Beamer said.

“But you also better embrace the amount of work that it goes into being good. It’s not just talking about it, and then it happens. Preseason expectations are based on, were you pretty good last season and does your quarterback come back? I mean, that’s pretty much what it is every year with people, and nobody thought we’re gonna be any good last year because our quarterback left and we weren’t, from a record standpoint, what we needed to be in 2023. This year, we got a lot of guys coming back. We were good last year. Our quarterback returns. So, rightfully so, you’re going to be picked pretty high. I wish it was that simple, but it’s not that simple.”

South Carolina will open the 2025 season on August 31st with a neutral site game in Atlanta against Virginia Tech. SEC play will later begin on September 13th at home against Vanderbilt.