VA Tech on track to flip Gamecocks commit Caleb Williams
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
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Well, the good news is that we no longer get excited about commitments, so there's no significant disappointment when bad news follows.
As of yesterday, the Gamecock national recruiting rankings by the 3 services were 32, 26 and 30. The conference rankings were 13, 12 and 12. This is not meant to be a negative comment by me. The rankings speak for themselves.
The trend of missing commitments and having de-commits is concerning, though.
Totally agree. And at the risk of someone saying I'm posting something negative, I will say this: How can anyone look at our recruiting and not say that Beamer is doing a poor job? 12th in the conference out of 16 teams? I don't believe that's what we expected from Beamer. He was sold to us as being a super recruiter.
Yep. Forget national rankings. When you're talking 12 out of 16 in your conference, it doesn't matter where you are nationally.
This is the do-or-die year for Beamer. The only way to reverse the recruiting trend it to turn in a surprisingly good year. And I don't mean 6 wins. I mean 8 or more. We aren't gonna flip any recruits back to us with a 6-win season. If he was doing relatively well in recruiting and keeping guys committed, it might be a different story. But, no doubt, a bad year last year is hurting us on the trail immensely this year. You do that 2 years in a row and you can't recover from it.
Some are thinking we will go just 5-7. If that happens, how do we justify keeping Beamer??
I mean, unless there's already a long-term commitment like 10 years (which I've argued for elsewhere), there's really no point.
I posted on here a while back an analysis of our coaches going back, I think to Woods. 3 of 5 had a poor Year 4 and were fired following Year 5. Holtz had a poor Year 4 and only made it to Year 6 because of his status/stature. If he was anyone else, he likely would have been canned after Year 5. Spurrier had a respectable Year 4, and he went on to last 10+ years. The takeaway: if you have a bad Year 4, you're not gonna make it.
So, back to your question, I don't see how you justify it (again, unless they've decided to ride it out for 10 years and see how things go). If recruiting is going poorly, if the results on the field are not there, and if historical precedent shows that Year 4 is a defining year...what justification can there be?
Who knows? Maybe we'll find out last year really was an anomaly with all the injuries and we bounce back to have a good season this year. Here's hoping. I think we need at least 7-8 wins, with a headline win in there (e.g. Bama, OU, LSU) to turn some heads.
So, what's new?
For us to have that kind of year first of all our defense is going to have to hold some potent offenses to below average numbers.
Secondly, DLogg, Teasley, Elliot and Blackwell must transform our OL and RB's into a productive 150-200 ypg running game and Sellers will need to perform like a seasoned QB regarding game management and ball protection.
An off-season transformation will have to have been executed or the football gods need to be involved, or both.
Fan apathy? Unwillingness to spend $ on another buyout? Wanting 5 years to be the timeframe so we don't "scare off" potential hires who might think we fire too quickly?
I'm just rattling off the top of my head.
I'd be 100% fine with it if Ray said "Hey, we're gonna give Beamer 10 full seasons here, no matter the results. We recognize some the unique challenges we face and the need to do some things different than we have in the past." What do we have to lose by trying something different?
What would seem totally stupid to me is to bring him back to be on the hot seat in Year 5. Really, what's the point? Even looking outside our program, what % of coaches entering Year 5 on the hot seat ended up turning things around?
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As you said earlier, recruiting is suffering because of the year we had on the field last season. Can you imagine how bad recruiting will be if we have a similar year to last season? What a hole our program will be in!!!!! I believe Beamer has to show that he can coach us out of mediocrity. More importantly, he must show that to future recruiting prospects.
I hope he can show it this year. I truly do. I like Beamer. He seems to genuinely want to be HERE. I know some are jaded in their perspective, but I think he really does love the University and state. It would awesome if he was the guy and could have a nice, long tenure here. But, if he can't show it this year, we can't hold onto him just because he's nice and loves it here. I'm pulling for him.
Good thing we bumped an inexperienced HC up to $6mill/yr too!!
Pardon the snark, because I'm with you; I really do like him. I like a lot of what he's brought to the university/program. I'm beginning to think that we gotta stick with him for a bit at this point. Given our history (blah, blah, blah...I know, I know) and the fact that we just brought Tx and Ok into the league - I don't care who's coaching here, it's getting tougher and tougher to win here, especially since we always opt for the choir-boy route with everything. Unless he puts together 3 losing seasons, or two sub-5-win seasons, we might as well hang on.... Either that or go get Jamie Chadwell. Just my worthless $.02.
When I first moved here Richard Bell was the coach. He was fired after ONE year. That didn't scare off one of our better HC hires.
I'm a bit confused by your post.
You start off by stating you would be fine if Beamer gets a full ten year trial period "no matter the results", but then you follow that with, he should not be retained for a 5th year if this year the results match what many of us expect (4-5 wins).
My post didn't say he should not retained for a 5th year if the results are bad. I said it would make no sense to bring him back for Year 5 if he's on the hot seat (with the administration). If the administration brings him back for Year 5 as a do or die year, it's a waste of time. History has shown that.
Now, if the administration has decided they are going to stick with Beamer for the long haul, no matter the results this year, that's a different story. But then he won't be going into Year 5 on the hot seat.
WTF are we not doing at the interior DL to land these kids. Lost long term favorite to us, Adam’s, to our rivals within a few months and can’t land anything since. Paper thin resume.will cause this.
I would have been fine here with Hugh Freeze. When his name was mentioned, I was in the minority wanting him here. Right now his Auburn recruiting class is ranked number 5 by two of the services and number 6 by On3, IN THE NATION. He could be cheating. I don't know. But he certainly has a great offensive mind, which is what is most important in college football today.
I hope Beamer is the ONE. I really believe we will find out this season. If he does not show the "coaching chops" to pull off some upsets, we are then "cornered". Why? Because it's obvious he is not the recruiter we thought he'd be. His recruiting is worse than Muschamp's, Spurrier's and Holtz'.
It's funny you guys think any other coach could do better here. This is about money and NIL plain and simple. We are a poor state sharing resources with another power 5 school. If you think it's anything other than that you are delusional about USC and our status nationally as a football program. We are on par with Alabama and Louisiana for GDP and population but we don't have the cache of Bama, Auburn or LSU. I would give Beamer 8-10 years because if you fire him you are not getting a big name coach and he would still be dealing with the lack of NIL funding as well as having to recruit against Georgia, Florida, UT and Clemson. With the new environment of NIL we are at a severe disadvantage and we don't have super rich alumni that are willing to give millions to NIL. UT gave a high school QB $8mil and our whole NIL budget is somewhere around $8mil. It was a struggle to raise that much. UT's collective has a budget of $183mil.
I would be curious to see where that $8 million dollar budget number comes from? I have yet to see real hard numbers from school to school, only anecdotal posts.
As for getting a different coach? I don't think anyone thinks getting a new coach would increase our NIL. (Unless you're arguing better success could draw more investments)
No, my thinking falls along the lines of, we have multiple inputs. NIL, coaching, recruiting outside NIL, maybe others. If we're at a disadvantage at one spot, you have to maximize what you can, not concede another spot. Meaning, if we're at a disadvantage due to NIL, why be at a disadvantage with coaching too? We can control one of those.
Clemson is in the same poor state. How come they seem to be able to handle it but not us? I want to blame somebody. Give me a name.
Many of them are also criticizing their own NIL efforts. A big plus for them is that they don't play the transfer portal game, so what they have can be used for HS recruits.
That is a good question. The first thought is "why not do what they do?"
The whines I hear from my clemson friends, is that they have little money, and spend it all on retaining players, not HS recruits. But they still have a what, top 15 ish class? So that can't be right.
Need big boosters who are willing to give to athletics without getting a tax deduction for it. Have had a couple who gave big money to academics, but only one that I know of that gave to both and for athletics that was an administration building.
I thought it was a good question
We are The state university. We have the largest enrollment of any college in the state. HOW does a land grant college seem to have all the plusses?
I thought it was a good question
We are The state university. We have the largest enrollment of any college in the state. HOW does a land grant college seem to have all the plusses?
One obvious one is recent success, their staff can sell that. And more wins in the easy ACC. (But playing in the SEC is supposed to be an advantage for us, not them)
Again, I would dearly love to see real NIL numbers for different programs.
UCF is right now ahead of us in recruiting. How is that? They just joined the Big 12 conference last year from the American Athletic Conference. Their stadium seats about half what ours seats, which tells me that the interest in football there is nowhere near that here. Clemson is ranked 8th right now in the nation in recruiting. We just hired a new women's softball coach who was gushing about the NIL money available to her to, she says, build a power house here. How is Staley getting it done in women's basketball? Is she getting a ton of NIL money there? I can't help but suspect that we are not using NIL money in a smart way here in football. Something just does not seem right to me.
I don't think any of this is simply by chance. Wish I could put my finger on it.
Agree bc nobody claimed he could coach. This is going to be a pretty bad year and the worst AD in the country will soon be hiring yet another HBC for us. My enthusiasm has not been this low since Bell.
Then why so late in the process? They weren't late to the game.
Plus doesn't explain why we are striking out on every other DT recruit.
Beamer will not be let go before June 30, 2026. And Tanner is far from the worst AD in the country.
Eason maybe. I just know the whole story from someone VERY close to the story. All about mom. Fact.
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