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by WILL FOLKS
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South Carolina’s putrid offense sputtered once again this weekend en route to the program’s fourth consecutive loss – prompting many long-suffering Gamecock fans to openly express impatience with fifth-year head coach Shane Beamer, whose program is clearly regressing.
They should be impatient… in fact, new Gamecock athletics director Jeremiah Donati should look long and hard at getting rid of Beamer this off-season (especially with so many talented coaches looking to land one of the many coveted gigs in the Southeastern Conference next season).
The ‘Beamerball’ experiment simply isn’t working… in fact, the more talent Beamer assembles in Columbia, S.C., the worse the product on the field becomes. Which is all on coaching. Like his predecessor, Will Muschamp, Beamer simply cannot find a play-caller capable of generating anything resembling the level of offensive production necessary to win consistently in the SEC.
After opening the year with a No. 13 national ranking – and cracking the top ten in early September after a 2-0 start – South Carolina has utterly and completely collapsed over the last two months. Following Saturday’s loss to No. 7 Ole Miss, the Gamecocks are now 3-6 overall – and 1-6 in conference play. Such backsliding is unacceptable under any circumstances, but it’s genuinely soul-crushing given the talent assembled on Beamer’s roster – and given fans’ expectations as to what this talent could (and should) have accomplished this season.
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The implosion can be distilled thusly: a team that started the 2025 campaign with legitimate College Football Playoff (CFP) aspirations – and a Heisman Trophy candidate under center – now must win each of its final three games just to qualify for a bowl. And with one of those three “must-win” games coming on the road against No. 3 Texas A&M, going bowling does not appear to be in South Carolina’s future.
Bowl eligibility should be the bare minimum expectation (even for a bottom-feeding SEC program), but Beamer is now one loss away from failing to qualify for the postseason in two of the past three seasons.
With the losses piling up in 2025, Beamer has now fallen to 32-28 (.533) as the Gamecocks’ head coach – including a 16-23 (.410) record against conference foes and a 7-20 (.259) mark against ranked opponents. Since tapping Mike Shula as South Carolina’s play-caller last December, Beamer’s Gamecocks have posted a 3-7 record – including a 0-6 record against ranked foes.
Calls for Shula’s head began to be heard several weeks ago – but Beamer inexplicably waited until there were only three games left on the schedule to fire him. Two weeks ago, Beamer fired former offensive line coach Lonnie Teasley as Gamecock fans grew increasingly irate with the team’s woeful offensive performance – a move which failed to move the needle (or quell fan unrest).
Now comes Shula’s firing, which seems a day late and a dollar short… and not entirely Beamer’s decision, according to sources familiar with the program.
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Offensive anemia has been a chronic condition in Columbia, S.C. ever since the high-flying “Cock-n-Fire” days of former head coach Steve Spurrier. Unfortunately for Gamecock fans, Beamer has failed to learn the lesson of his predecessor – which in and of itself should be a fireable offense.
Muschamp’s teams could never generate sustained offense… a trend which has plumbed new depths under Beamer. Think former Gamecock offensive coordinators Marcus Satterfield and Dowell Loggains were bad? The third time has not been a charm for Beamer – whose current offensive iteration is the worst the school has seen in decades.
Through nine gnarly games in 2025, Shula’s unit ranked No. 128 out of 136 FBS programs in total offense – averaging an embarrassing 302.1 yards per game. South Carolina also remains the only FBS program not to eclipse the 350-yard mark in a single game this season.
The Gamecocks have averaged an atrocious 100.8 rushing yards under ground game coordinator Shawn Elliott – also ranking No. 128 nationally. The passing game (formerly Shula’s domain) hasn’t fared much better, with South Carolina ranking No. 104 nationally with just 193.3 yards per game.
“When you can’t run and you can’t throw, you can’t score,” I noted several weeks ago (back when firing Shula might have made a difference).
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The Gamecocks’ scoring offense currently ranks No. 119 nationally with 19.7 points per game this season. In fact, Shula-coached teams have averaged just 14 points per game excluding defensive and special teams’ touchdowns – underscoring just how bad the Gamecocks have gotten on offense.
Failure like this is inexcusable no matter who is on the field… but with a generational dual-threat talent like LaNorris Sellers under center and weapons like Nyck Harbor and Vandrevius Jacobs running routes?
It’s unfathomably bad…
Sellers has spent 2025 running for his life. Pressured on almost every drop back, he’s been sacked 34 times this season – tied for next-to-last nationally. When it comes to yardage surrendered on sacks, South Carolina ranks dead last in the country – giving up 302 yards. No other program even comes close to that level of reverse momentum… in fact, only seven other programs have given up more than 200 yards in sacks.
Thanks to this ongoing ineptitude, Beamer is solidly trending in the direction of Muschamp – who was run out of Columbia on a rail during his fifth season in 2020. Muschamp’s disastrous reign in Columbia concluded with a 28-30 (.482) overall record, a 17-22 (.435) conference mark and a 3-15 (.166) record against ranked opponents.
Worth recalling? He was fired following a blowout loss on the road to Texas A&M… a move Donati should consider reprising if that’s the way things ultimately go down in College Station on November 15.
Muschamp, like Beamer, momentarily silenced his critics by posting an expectations-defying, nine-win season. But when his moment arrived – as Beamer’s seemed to have arrived this season – his program fell apart.
“It’s one thing to quiet your critics – it’s something else entirely to prove them wrong,” I’ve noted on several occasion’s during Beamer’s five years in Columbia.
And if you haven’t proven them wrong by your fifth year, odds are you’re not going to do so…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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9 comments
Cock a doodle doo. Wait till next year!
Back to the old Gamecocks average seasons, 5 or 6 wins, barely any of them in conference.
The only thing that makes me pause about firing Beaner is that the market for new coaching talent in major programs is on the high demand side, not the supply side. Something like 6 or 7 other major program teams have fired their coaches and will be out looking for new ones….the handlful of potentially transformative new coach hires will be demanding sums that I don’t think our program is going to be able to compete with.
I completely agree with you. We need to look at the big picture here.
Keep Beamer! He just needs a few more years to get it all worked out. Sellers is really outstanding too. He just needs time. He has nailed that running backward concept!
Both in athletics and academics USC will continue to reflect the type of leadership it has in the BOT and Osborne: barely average but always talking a good game. There is no base for excellence do don’t expect it
How about them Cocks! Another dumpster fire in the making! Stay tuned news at 11.
Only three coaches have had a winning record in their first five years:
Billy Laval 1928–1934 39–26–6
Warren Giese 1956–1960 28–21–1
Steve Spurrier 2005–2009 35–28–0
Shane Beamer will be the fourth. Even if he lost the remaining three games. Is been over a decade since anyone else could say that.
Granted, hiring Mike Shula was a disaster (this guy could not win at Alabama). Just who does the author suggest that they hire? Lane Kiffin (who is on line to receive a $95 million dollar contract with an additional $25 million in NIL money)? It’s all about the money. Survival of the financially fittest is where we are headed. Does anyone believe that these athletes ever attend a class? Shane Beamer loves the University and he represents USC respectfully. The rich will keep getting richer.