Gamecock Football Fans are Smoking Hopium… Again

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by WILL FOLKS

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By most accounts, it’s been a good (early) offseason for embattled South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer. The cheerleader-in-chief of the Gamecock football program has brought in multiple new coaches to revive South Carolina’s moribund offense – and he’s succeeded in keeping his three most talented players on the roster for 2026.

Redshirt junior quarterback LaNorris Sellers, junior edge rusher Dylan Stewart and senior wide receiver Nyck Harbor are all returning to Columbia, S.C. this coming fall. Their decisions to “run it back” elated Gamecock fans who had been nervously eyeing the transfer portal following the team’s disastrous 4-8 season in 2025.

South Carolina also upgraded its defensive coaching staff, adding Deion Barnes from Penn State to replace defensive line coach Sterling Lucas (who left to join Lane Kiffin‘s staff at LSU). Given Barnes’ reputation for developing elite edge rushers, his hiring certainly seems to be a boon for a program which has seen its share of superstars at this position.

Barnes will be responsible for developing Stewart’s prolific potential as a pass rusher, while new offensive coordinator Kendal Briles will seek to reorient Sellers’ once-promising career trajectory – and look to maximize Harbor’s equally prodigious skill set as a deep ball threat.

Clearly, there’s no shortage of talent to work with…

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South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers throws a 53 yarder to Nyck Harbor to put them on the board in the Palmetto Bowl?? pic.twitter.com/2ByEzijGSL

— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) November 29, 2025

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Yet even as Gamecock fans are tweeting ebullient over Beamer’s initial offseason moves, it’s important to keep in mind the context in which they are occurring… something the South Carolina faithful struggles to keep straight.

Are good things happening? Yes. But are there significant problems being left unaddressed by Beamer and his staff? Absolutely… and some of those problems do not even remotely seem to be priorities despite the scorching heat beneath the fifth-year head coach’s seat.

First of all, maintaining is not moving forward. Sellers, Stewart and Harbor were the Gamecocks’ top three players heading into 2025, a year that began with the team ranked No. 13 in the nation – but which ended in calamity. South Carolina climbed as high as No. 10 nationally and was a legitimate College Football Playoff (CFP) contender in early September – but then Diego Pavia‘s Vanderbilt Commodores badly exposed them in a humiliating home loss.

Things only got more humiliating from there…

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Despite having generational superstars like Sellers and Harbor on the field, the Gamecock offense was one of the worst units in the entire country last season – something Beamer failed to address until it was too late. Through twelve games last season, South Carolina averaged only 22.7 points per game (No. 102 nationally) – but its defense contributed four touchdowns and its special teams added three scores. That meant the Gamecock offense was responsible for just 18.6 points per game – pushing its ranking even lower.

Sellers regressed in 2025 – as a passer, rusher and decision-maker. He began the season as a Heisman Trophy frontrunner and projected top five pick in the 2026 draft. He ended it as an afterthought.

Can Briles rebuild him? Maybe… but that job will be exponentially harder if South Carolina fails to address the underlying reasons for his regression.

In addition to South Carolina’s atrocious ground game (which ranked No. 118 nationally with just 111.1 yards per game), its porous offensive line surrendered a staggering 43 sacks on the year – or 3.58 sacks per game. That figure ranked third-worst in the entire country – while the 358 yards the Gamecocks lost on sacks ranked second-worst nationally.

Assistant coach Shawn Elliott was the Gamecocks’ run game coordinator in 2025 – and also served as offensive line coach for the final six games of the season after Beamer fired Lonnie Teasley.

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Inexplicably, Elliott is returning to the South Carolina sidelines in 2026… meaning one of the biggest areas of coaching concern from last season remains an integral part of the Gamecocks’ offensive equation. Hopefully, the influence of Briles and the addition of former Temple head coach Stan Drayton as the Gamecocks’ running backs coach – and former TCU offensive line coach Randy Clements – will improve the Gamecocks’ run game “coordination.”

Early signs are not promising, however. South Carolina has lost five offensive linemen (Tree Babalade, Trovon Blaugh, Cason Henry, Nick Sharpe and Mac Walters) to the transfer portal already this offseason. Five-star recruit Darius Gray – the Gamecocks’ top incoming signee – should help fill the gap up front along with fellow 2026 signee Zyon Guiles, sophomore Shedrick Sarratt Jr. and junior Josiah Thompson.

Still, the lack of depth and experience at these critical trench positions figures to be a major issue once again for South Carolina next season – as it seems to be every season.

Another key area of concern is running back – a position at which Beamer’s staff has unfathomably failed to land a single recruit out of high school in back-to-back classes. The Gamecocks currently have just three returning players at this position – sophomore Matt Fuller, junior Jawarn Howell and senior Isaiah Augustave. This trio combined for only 341 yards last year, paced by Fuller’s 260 yards on 72 carries.

Shockingly, Beamer told a local radio show recently he doesn’t think South Carolina needs to “go out and spend a ton of money to go get a ‘dude’ at running back.”

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“I don’t think we need to go out and just bring in some dynamic starter – I know we don’t,” Beamer told 107.5 FM last week. “Would that be nice if he wanted to come relatively cheap? Yeah. (But) I feel like we have some ‘dudes’ already in that room. We just need to increase the depth and the competition around them.”

That lackadaisical approach hardly sounds in keeping with the urgency the situation calls for… especially considering the make-or-break moment currently staring Beamer in the face at South Carolina.

Also, isn’t the establishment of some semblance of a rushing attack critical to the LaNorris Sellers’ reclamation project?

While Briles was known for his aerial exploits at TCU, during his lone stint as an SEC play-caller at Arkansas he used the ground game to great effect. In 2021, Briles guiding the Razorbacks to a No. 7 national ranking with 227.8 rushing yards per game. Arkansas eclipsed 300 yards on the ground three times that season – including a season-high 353 yards against Penn State in the 2022 Outback Bowl.

Of course, achieving such consistent success requires ball carriers who can tote the rock… and blockers who can clear a path for them. South Carolina had neither in 2025, and it doesn’t seem (for the moment) to be improving on that situation heading into 2026.

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RELATED | SHANE BEAMER EXPERIMENT NEEDS TO BE OVER

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In addition to its looming portal losses on offense, Beamer’s squad is losing numerous players to the 2026 NFL draft on the defensive side of the ball. In addition to projected first round selection Brandon Cisse, defensive backs DQ Smith and Jalon Kilgore are also declaring for the draft – as are defensive tackles Monkell Goodwine and Nick Barrett and defensive end Bryan Thomas Jr.

Those are massive holes to fill… and Beamer continues to be thoroughly out-recruited by his SEC rivals as he seeks to fill them. With the nation’s No. 25 class, South Carolina ranks behind seven programs on its 2026 schedule in terms of recruiting – Georgia (No. 5), Texas A&M (No. 6), Alabama (No. 7), Tennessee (No. 8), Florida (No. 15), Oklahoma (No. 16) and Clemson (No. 19).

How does a program expect to gain ground under such circumstances? Especially if it starts developing a reputation for regressing the talent it does manage to land?

Therein lies the fundamental problem for South Carolina as the program seeks to rise above its historic mediocrity.

This year’s transfer portal officially opens on January 2, 2026 – and closes fourteen days later (on January 16, 2026). Beamer has made some solid assistant hires – and locked down the core nucleus of returning talent – but the fundamental problems that dogged the program in 2025 (and squandered that talent) still loom large heading into the new year.

Either those problems will be addressed substantively… or Beamer will be looking for new employment come next December.

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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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