Greg McElroy evaluates Shane Beamer’s comment on South Carolina’s preseason ranking

Shane Beamer made his thoughts on his South Carolina football team known during his opening remarks in Dallas. He is excited about what the Gamecocks have in front of them after struggling in 2023. Beamer wants — maybe needs — to bounce back in a big way and walked into SEC Media Days with some confidence.

There was not much confidence in Beamer on where his team would be picked in the preseason SEC poll by the media, though. He expected South Carolina to be around the bottom three, something ESPN’s Greg McElroy understood. Looking from the outside, McElroy sees where SEC media members might be low on Beamer’s squad.

“A lot of people look at the South Carolina Gamecocks and think about where they were problematic last year,” McElroy said. “They look at the fact Spencer Rattler got drafted in the NFL and they’re like ‘They don’t have enough. They don’t have enough guys to make life difficult for the teams that they’ll face.'”

South Carolina was picked 13th in the poll, just ahead of Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt. Auburn, Kentucky, and Florida were the three teams directly ahead, being the bottom seven heading into the 2024 season.

McElroy believes South Carolina has a chance to finish higher than 13th when we look at the final rankings in December. LaNorris Sellers will be taking over at quarterback and Beamer could change up the offensive gameplan by running the ball. Bringing in Raheim “Rocket” Sanders was a huge coup out of the NCAA transfer portal.

Add in a defense, in McElroy’s eyes, capable of better in the top half of the SEC and results could fall South Carolina’s way.

“I think they’re going to be better than people realize,” McElroy said. “I think defensively, they have a chance to be really good. Really good is relative. I don’t think they’re going to be a top two or three defense in the league but I think they’ll be in the top half. Which I think will let them win more games than people are anticipating.”

But until those results come, McElroy will still keep South Carolina closer to the bottom half of the SEC. Certainly some potential there for Beamer however, other teams just stack up better on paper in the preseason.

“I can’t personally put them in front of teams like Auburn,” McElroy said. “In front of teams like LSU, Oklahoma. All of those teams, to me, are better than the South Carolina Gamecocks.”