SEC Preview: How will Beamer Ball 2.0 work for South Carolina?
South Carolina was so bad last season that the administration burned the season to the ground before it had even finished, firing Will Muschamp. The move didn’t really shock anyone – although how it was done and when it was done was certainly an eyebrow-raiser.
Anyway, the Gamecocks brought in Shane Beamer, son of Virginia Tech legend Frank and former TEs coach of Oklahoma. He was seen as an ace recruiter during his time under Steve Spurrier during his time in Columbia.
So it wasn’t quite a SEC retread, but it was nearly a retread.
He arrived to a short recruiting window, and it showed, with the Gamecocks finishing 14th in the SEC and 79th overall in 2021. It is headlined by the country’s seventh-highest JUCO player in Bam Martin-Scott, who actually committed in February, beating Mississippi State to the signature.
OFFENSE
South Carolina last year had one – if not THE – best running back in college football in Kevin Harris, who ran for 1,138 yards and 15 yards last year, and if Beamer doesn’t work out a way to give him a lot of ball this year, he’s an idiot. He’s got former Carolina Panthers OC coach Marcus Satterfield, where we expect to have a lot of the Baylor offense he learned as TE coach under Matt Rhule, who he followed to the NFL.
He’s going to be backed-up by MarShawn Lloyd, who tore his ACL before the season-started, but was one of the most sought-after RBs in the nation when he came to town.
If the offensive line, which returns four starters – can hold out – then we’ll be seeing a lot of both this year.
One of the big reasons also this will happen is…..We don’t know who’s going to be his quarterback. Luke Doty, the de facto starter, is out with a foot injury that could put him out beyond the start of the season. It could have been Ryan Hillinski, but he transferred to Northwestern. So now? It’s now graduate assistant Zab Norland, who won a QB competition with Jason Brown for the job. Norland was previously a starting QB at North Dakota State after the departure of Trey Lance before getting demoted for bad play.
We expect TE Nick Muse to the biggest target for the QB(s) in the future, as well as 6-7 wideout EJ Jenkins, who transferred with Brown.
But otherwise, it seems that the hopes of Gamecock Nation will be stacked on Harris.
DEFENSE
When Muschamp was fired a bunch of players immediately put their hats in the ring for transfer or opted out of the season, such was the length of their anger.
The most ripped-apart of this was the secondary, who lost two players to the NFL (Jaycee Horn, Isreal Mukamu) and three more to transfer (including second-best tackler DB Jammie Robinson, who went to Florida State). Also gone is LB Ernest Jones to the NFL.
South Carolina’s still got DEs JJ Engabare and Aaron Sterling, and return all of their front 4, which means they’ll be harder to deal with. We don’t know if they’ll be able to stop the passing with such a thin secondary, though.
SCHEDULE
Eastern Illinois
at East Carolina
at Georgia
Kentucky
Troy
at Tennessee
Vanderbilt
at Texas A&M
Florida
at Missouri
Auburn
Clemson
The Gamecocks will start hot by beating Eastern Illinois and Eastern Carolina, but then go to 2-2 by getting blown out at Georgia and losing a close one to Kentucky. They beat Troy to get to 3-2, before losing at Tennessee in another hard one. The Vanderbilt victory is the only one for the rest of the season, as the Gamecocks slide to 4-8.
However, most games aren’t blow-outs because of South Carolina’s commitment to the running game, which teams will find hard to stop. Unless it’s Clemson.