This Week in Coaching: Shane Beamer has South Carolina ahead of schedule, but there's room to take an even bigger step forward
After upsetting Texas A&M in a raucous home game Saturday night, South Carolina is on a four-game winning streak — the program’s longest in nearly a decade.
Two seasons removed from winning just two games, the Gamecocks found themselves ranked inside the Top 25, too.
Suffice to say, it’s good to be Shane Beamer right now.
“I could give you coach speak and tell you it doesn’t mean anything, but I’d be lying to you,” Beamer said in an interview on the Paul Finebaum Show earlier this week.
“I think it’s a sign that we’re heading in the right direction. It was a big step for us to be a two-win team two years ago and then in Year 1 win a bowl game and now in Year 2, to be nationally-ranked halfway through the season. It’s a good step for our program, but it’s not the end goal. I didn’t come here just to be 25th in the country and our players didn’t come here just to be ranked in the top 25.
“We all have higher expectations than that and we’ve got to continue to work, the rankings, the only one that matters, is the one at the end of the season there’s no doubt about that. But to be ranked right now in late October is a testament to the people in this program, the players, the coaches, the staff and everyone in this organization. We’ve got a long way to go but it’s certainly something I know our fans are excited about coming off a big win on Saturday.
While much of college football Twitter (eye roll!) seems to take issue with the second-year head coach, Beamer has nearly a perfect Q-rating in the Palmetto State. He’s breathed life and energy into a wheezing program, and after widely exceeding expectations in Year 1, he’s continued South Carolina’s upward momentum in 2022.
Progress isn’t always linear, but Shane Beamer is proving he just knows one way: Forward.
In Week 3, South Carolina was drubbed by Georgia where Beamer fielded questions about his team possibly “quitting,” but the ‘Cocks have bounced back to smash a couple of non-conference foes, including Charlotte who just fired its head coach and several of Beamers’ staffers are considered early candidates for the job.
They then went on the road and upset Kentucky.
In less than two seasons, Beamer has already won five games outright as an underdog.
Year 1 was about Shane Beamer engineering a culture change in Columbia. It worked immediately because, as I wrote during SEC Media Days, Shane Beamer is unabashedly Shane Beamer. Few coaches are more comfortable in their own skin.
He’s just fine with you mocking his corny dances and quirky quotes because his players love him. They ride for him. And the proof is in the results so far — South Carolina doesn’t do anything particularly exceptional, but it finds ways to win games.
In the upset over Texas A&M, the Gamecocks had a 17-0 lead despite just 19 total yards at the time. They housed a 100-yard kickoff return and used a takeaway for another short touchdown drive.
The Gamecocks’ offense remains maddening, particularly the usage of former 5-star tailback Marshawn Lloyd, and that should be Beamer’s focus to continue to move the program forward.
A year ago, Beamer navigated the Gamecocks to seven wins despite starting four different quarterbacks, and yet, after bringing in former 5-star Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler via the transfer portal, the offense is only mildly more effective (just 374 yards per game, 5.84 yards per play).
They have better players, but Rattler is averaging just 7.5 yards per attempt, with more interceptions (eight) than touchdowns (five). The OL remains a concern.
Ultimately, #BeamerBall is fun, but it’s not sustainable long-term as the foundation of a winner. Awesome special teams will only get you so far.
For the Gamecocks to truly become a contender in the SEC East in the future, they need their offense to take another leap. Maybe that’s with a new OC next season, or perhaps Marcus Satterfield, who does not share Beamer unanimous approval rating with Cocky Nation, figures some different things out.
Shane Beamer has already climbed the first hurdle. He’s proven his Gamecocks can claw their way to tough wins. He’s bringing more talent to Columbia. South Carolina is ahead of schedule.
But there’s room for more. No one thought it would make a bowl game last season, and considering its 2022 slate, few believed it could replicate its 7-win season this year, either.
Now sitting at 5-2 with upcoming games against Missouri, Vanderbilt and Florida, South Carolina could absolutely be 7-3 or 8-2 come late October with a chance to play spoiler against either Tennessee or Clemson.
Beamer wants to keep dancing. He wants to keep “writing the story still of this 2022 football team.” If the offense can become a bigger factor in the team’s success, South Carolina could weave a terrific tale.
“I would certainly hate for the high mark and high point be the last two weeks,” he said.
“We’re proud (to be ranked), but we’re not satisfied. I look at it more as the next step. It’s a credit to the players and the people in this program,” he added on his team’s current momentum.
“To be, two years ago at this time to be a two-win team, to be ranked was the further’s thing from anyone’s mind. To less than two years later, to be ranked in the Top 25, to me it’s a sign, another statement that we’re headed in the right direction.
DID YOU KNOW?
… That ESPN’s College Gameday will feature a pair of HBCU programs for just the second time ever this weekend?
The popular pregame show is headed to Jackson, Mississippi, where it will showcase Deion Sanders’ Jackson State Tigers and their SWAC foe Southern this weekend.
It’s another prime opportunity for Coach Prime to continue to promote his program, the SWAC, HBCUs and his potential candidacy for a number of Power 5 openings this coaching cycle.
I expect Sanders to fully embrace the moment and opportunity, using ESPN’s platform to spread his message for change and also shine a light on his ambition to climb the head coaching ranks.
COORDINATOR OF THE WEEK TO WATCH
What do you have in store for us this weekend, Manny Diaz?
Penn State’s first-year defensive coordinator is the brain trust of a unit that ranks No. 38th nationally in yards per play allowed (5.14 yards per play), and the former Miami head coach is tasked with finding a way to slow down the nation’s No. 1 scoring offense.
The Nittany Lions host the Ohio State Buckeyes this weekend, and Diaz’s defense needs a better performance than the last time it was featured in a marque Big Ten spotlight.
In its White Out game last weekend, PSU got back on track, stuffing a solid Minnesota offense. It was a good showing from Diaz & Co., as the wounds were still fresh from Michigan beating, when the Wolverines completely controlled the trenches, and rushed for 418 yards.
Ohio State presents all sorts of problems defensively, as Ryan Day’s offense is balanced and explosive. The Buckeyes average 5.56 yards per rush, second only to UM in the conference, and lead the Big Ten with 10.5 yards per pass attempt. CJ Shroud leads the nation with 28 touchdowns.
The Nittany Lions’ strength defensively at least matches up well with Ohio State’s ridiculous room of receiving talent. PSU has perhaps the nation’s No. 1 corner in Joey Porter Jr., and Johnny Dixon and Kalen King are really solid, too. Safety Ji’Ayir Brown has a team-high three picks.
In the only other opportunity facing a dynamic passing attack this season, Diaz’s unit allowed some yards to Purdue’s Aidan O’Connell (365 yards) but it came on close to 60 attempts and they broke up a season-high 16 passes.
Diaz needs to dial up a repeat performance if Penn State has any hopes of springing the upset in Happy Valley this weekend. If he does, he just might find his name back on ADs radars for a potential Group of 5 job later this cycle.
QUOTABLE
It’s Halloween week, so I’d be remiss not to circle back to Mike Leach’s postgame rant after Mississippi State was housed by Alabama this past weekend.
After the Bulldogs were trounced 30-6, Leach went on a crazy — even for him — diatribe about how his players were scared of seeing the Alabama uniforms — as if the Tide players were in Mike Myers’ Halloween masks.
“I’ll tell you one thing they do that gives us trouble,” Leach said. “We’ve got some guys that are afraid of the jersey that says Alabama on it. We spent a lot of time frightened of their jerseys. You want to scare some of the guys on our team, put an Alabama jersey on, it’ll scare the hell out of them.
“I don’t know,” he began, “maybe we have to hang them in their lockers because there are other really good teams that we’re not afraid of their jerseys, but we’re afraid of Alabama’s jerseys.”
It was an epic rant, and truly, if I’d seen if earlier, it would’ve made my Sunday Superlatives column as an honorary Thank You for Your Honesty, Honor. The wild part? That wasn’t even the craziest statement Leach made late Saturday night.
He also veered into a bizarre tangent on hands, dinosaurs and evolution.
QUOTABLE, PART DEUX
Jimbo Fisher is facing all sorts of questions right now after Texas A&M’s disappointing 3-4 start to the 2022 season, but armed with the nation’s greatest $85 million parachute, the Aggies’ head coach is free to say (and spin) whatever he pleases without recourse.
Case in point: When asked about what his message is to prospects amid such a poor season, Fisher responded with the galaxy-brain take that losing could actually be a winning strategy in recruiting for Texas A&M.
“Look at what we’re doing and the guys that have been,” Fisher said. “They see opportunities. Everybody says, ‘I go somewhere that’s winning all the time, I may not play for a while,’ you know what I’m saying? We’ve got good young players.
“Look at the young players, look at the talent we have, look at the guys making a lot of the plays and they see that we’ve got a good nucleus of what we’re doing and that we’re only a play off on those games. You see all that, you see it and you be truthful about it.”
That is some epic spin.
Texas A&M just signed the perhaps the greatest recruiting class of all time last cycle, but now Fisher is having to re-recruit those same players to make sure they don’t enter the transfer portal during the Aggies’ disastrous 2022 season, while also selling to new prospects that team’s struggles just means there’s more immediate opportunities.
That’s a bold strategy, Cotton.