South Carolina Football: Shane Beamer positioned low in coaching rankings

With spring practice over, the transfer portal closed, and the college football season still over 3 months away, it is officially "talking season." This time of year is often filled with hypotheticals, projections, and rankings, and one in particular could be of interest to South Carolina football fans.

A ranking from CBS Sports' Tom Fornelli and several CBS Sports colleagues did not feature Gamecock head coach Shane Beamer in a flattering position. Coming in ranked 46th out of 68 coaches in the Power-4, Beamer dropped six spots from his spot at #40 last offseason.

Fornelli's reasoning for the low ranking of Beamer stems from the Gamecocks taking a step back in the 2023 season. It is hard to argue that USC didn't live up to expectations with their 5-7 showing last fall, but many blame injuries on the offensive line for a game or two's worth of losses.

Beamer is not a traditional "X-and-O" coach (though, he is considered a special teams guru), so without huge numbers in the win column, he will never be ranked very high on these types of lists.

Year four of the Beamer era in Columbia is a crucial one. The South Carolina football program has the chance to take a big step forward through the continued strong recruiting efforts from the Gamecock coaching staff, but another disappointing season will slow that momentum and could put Beamer on the hot seat (or worse).

There are a lot of reasons for Gamecock fans to have optimism that things will be better for the garnet and black in 2024, but there are still plenty of questions that surround the team. Considered one of the teams in the SEC with the highest variance this fall, South Carolina football has been projected anywhere from 4-8 to 8-4 by national pundits this spring.