Shane Beamer calls out preseason predictions for South Carolina following 9-4 finish

After the predictions were the opposite of how they’d finish by the end of the fall, Shane Beamer gave credit to what this year’s team accomplished at South Carolina.

Following the end of their season in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve, Beamer reflected on this year for the Gamecocks. That included what many thought of them going into this season and how they exceeded those preseason expectations with their record of 9-4.

“There’s a lot of people, if you look at those preseason projections? Very few of them even had us in a bowl game in 2024,” Beamer recalled. “I may or may not have some of those saved on my phone as reminders because there was a lot. Some of y’all as well, some of the national media. I mean, there was one who thought we were going to go 3-9 and somebody thought we were going 5-7. There weren’t a lot of people picking us to be in a bowl game, much less the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl.”

With that, the Gamecocks decided to prove those wrong in how they approached the season.

“Guys like LaNorris, who was voted a permanent team captain by his teammates, and the rest of these guys said, you know, ‘That’s b.s.. We’ve got a heck of a team and we’re going to go work out buts off and leave this program better than we left it after the ’23 season‘” said Beamer. “Since they’ve come back in January, they’ve been unbelievable. I mean, I know everybody sees what we did the last 12 weeks or 13 games but just the work that these guys put in from January, Feburary, March, April, May, June, July, August, throughout the season.”

There was a moment where South Carolina could have still finished with a so-so record as they were at .500 halfway through the season. Still, they answered again in winning each of their final six in the regular season with a chance to earn a spot for themselves in the College Football Playoff.

That response is what Beamer is hoping is what lives on about this team in Columbia.

“I would hope they’d be remembered for the foundation they laid and the amazing moments that they created this season,” said Beamer. “To sit there and be 3-3 at one point in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and there was a lot of hurt and frustration in that locker room because, at that point, we had two losses by a total of five points. The way that group came together? I hope that they would be remembered for that. That, in life, adversity happens and adversity comes your way and, when we dealt with adversity at 3-3, no one in our program blinked.”

“To run off six wins in a row like we did and have a shot at the playoff going into the last weekend and then to come down here and have an opportunity to win 10 games? I’d hope they’d be remembered for the great moments on the field, for a lot of the things that they accomplished this year for the first time ever at Carolina, and what a special group of young men they are,” Beamer said.

South Carolina didn’t end up achieving a lot in actuality with no postseason win either. It’s what they did along the way, though, and what they set for the program moving forward that Beamer is most proud of with his fourth team with the Gamecocks.

“Talked about it in our team meeting last night. The legacy that they left? I said it in the locker room at Clemson after the game. I think it was on one of our social media accounts. But, like, they’re the example of what it’s supposed to be as a student-athlete in college athletics,” said Beamer. “It’s a really special group of guys and I’m going to miss the heck out of them.”