National college football expert gives take on Beamer, South Carolina

One of the most trusted voices in national college football media believes that South Carolina is doing the right thing by letting Shane Beamer work through a difficult 2025 season and getting things fixed this offseason.

“In the last 40 years, two guys have won nine games in the regular season in Carolina. Shane, and a guy by the name of Steve Spurrier,” said Chris Low, national college football reporter for On3, during an appearance on The Garnet Trust Hour on 107.5 The Game on Tuesday. “There’s no way there should really be any consideration given to fire Shane Beamer right now. To me, I’d be asinine to push him out after this year.”

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Low, who’s covered college football for nearly four decades and closely followed the SEC during his career, understands that this season has not been what anyone in Columbia wanted or expected.

He pointed to Beamer’s past successes in Columbia as evidence that he can win, with a caveat.

“To be able to sustain that over two, three, four seasons in a row, that’s the hard part,” Low mentioned.

Low also believes that finding an offensive coordinator that can turn around South Carolina’s fortunes in 2026 is going to be a heavy lift.

“It’s going to be hard,” he said. “I don’t think it’s impossible. How many established OCs, quote unquote are going to come in? I do think that’s a hard hire. Now, that doesn’t mean they won’t get somebody good or you won’t get somebody that can help them get back on track offensively, but it won’t be easy. To me, that will be interesting to see who that is and then what he does in the offseason.”

Low has seen enough of these situations to know that there’s going to be more stress to win in 2026.

“Clearly, it’s been substandard for the Gamecocks on offense this year. Generally, when you start firing coaches on your staff – and this is not a given – then that means that you feel pressure,” Low explained. “There’s pressure outside that, hey, you’ve got to fix this and fix it in a hurry. Next year’s a big year that, I think we all agree that, against what’s going to be a hard schedule that they need to show improvement.”

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