Shane Beamer explains what sparked South Carolina's scintillating run

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer joined the Andy & Ari On3 show to discuss his team’s excellent 2024 campaign, affording the Gamecocks’ leader with the opportunity to heap praise on one of the players who has made it possible.

That’s quarterback LaNorris Sellers, who is playing his best football of late.

“I think he just continued to get better,” Beamer said. “I wish I had a big, great answer for you, but I really think it’s as simple as he just continued to get more experience and get better each week and gaining confidence. And then our team did as well as each week went.”

South Carolina has now reeled off six straight wins, getting into position to taste a College Football Playoff berth. It probably won’t materialize — the Gamecocks are just too far away with too few games left on the docket — but it’s still been an impressive run.

Beamer circled back around to Sellers and how impressive it’s been that he’s been able to do what he has despite injuries this season.

“People don’t realize, or maybe they do and they just forgot, he didn’t play a lot of football the first five games of the season, if you will,” Beamer said of Sellers. “He played Game 1 against Old Dominion. He played against Kentucky but he missed time in the Kentucky game with an injury where he got knocked out for part of the second quarter, I believe. Third game was LSU. He didn’t play the whole second half because of injury. Fourth game was Akron, he didn’t play at all because of an injury. And then really his first SEC game that he played from start to finish was the fifth game of the season against Ole Miss.

“You look at what he did from that game on through the rest of the season, he just continued to improve. We played cleaner football as a team.”

There’s little question that this is Beamer’s best year yet at South Carolina. The Gamecocks will have a chance to get to 10 wins with a bowl game.

That’s a credit to all the young players who have contributed, not just Sellers.

“But he, along with the other true freshmen that we started — I mean, we started, you just alluded to Josiah (Thompson) and Dylan (Stewart). They started as true freshmen. We started Mazeo Bennett at wide receiver as a true freshman. We started Mike Smith, a tight end from Savannah, as a true freshman. So a lot of these freshmen got experience.”

Bottom line: South Carolina is playing its best when it matters most.

“I said at the beginning of the season that we would be playing our best football at the end of the year and that we’d be a different team at the end of the season than we were at the beginning, and that absolutely manifested itself,” Beamer said.