South Carolina Head Coach Shane Beamer Reflects on the 2025 Season and Looks Ahead to Improvements in 2026
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After a stellar 2024 campaign, South Carolina came into the 2025 season with the high expectations of making a College Football Playoff run. While things did not go according to plan, South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer took the time to reflect on last season and what the program learned to make for a better 2026 season with SEC State of Mind Podcast hosts Taylor Davis and Jason Campbell.
The 2024 offseason came with a lot of questions for a then veteran led roster coming off a disappointing 2023 year. Shane Beamer and his staff knew changes needed to be made and decided to lean on the veteran leadership of his roster both in returning players and in transfers. Beamer speaks about watching those players before the season kicked off and knew a bounce back year was in the works.
"Going into 2024, I knew we were going to be a lot better than people thought we were going to be because we had all this leadership and older guys," Beamer reflects on the 2024 season.
Beamer Describes His Team as "Intentional"
2025 was a let down year following an exodus of veteran leadership to the NFL from the 2024 team. Beamer isn't just putting last season behind him, he is using those lessons to help build this year's squad.
"We've got a lot of new faces and a lot of new players that weren't here in '25, but we've got a lot of guys that were here. What happened in '25 is very relevant to what's going on right now in '26," Beamer said. "Understanding the opportunity to win some games last season that we didn't play great in the fourth quarter. The feeling that we had last season that nobody wanted, we don't want to have again."
One of the biggest examples of those end of the game blunders came against Texas A&M on the road. The Gamecocks held a 30-3 lead at the half looking to upset on a top 10 Aggies team in their house. South Carolina would fail to score another point the entire second half and watched A&M score 28 unanswered points to come back and win the game. This is just one example of the 2025 team letting winnable games slip through their grasp.
Beamer is once again leaning on the vets in his locker room and learning from the hard lessons of the past. When asked if he could describe his team so far, Beamer offered one word.
"Intentional," Beamer said. "This is a very intentional team that we've had since January. We're just a lot older. The best teams I feel like in college football especially are the teams that are the oldest. If you look at our roster, we're a lot older than what we were last season."
While the expectations may not be quite as high outside the building, the Gamecocks certainly have the talent at the right positions to make a 2024 run and push for the College Football Playoffs in 2026.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/southcarolina as South Carolina Head Coach Shane Beamer Reflects on the 2025 Season and Looks Ahead to Improvements in 2026.
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