Shane Beamer reveals one aspect of college football he would change

Much is made about NIL and the transfer portal when people talk about what they’d like to change in college football. But South Carolina coach Shane Beamer brought up an interesting idea for higher-ups to consider.

He wants scrimmages. Not intra-squad scrimmages or practices, but scrimmages against other teams.

Beamer pitched the idea during an interview on SiriusXM College, and brought up the fact that football is the only sport that can’t scrimmage against other teams. For example, college basketball teams can participate in “secret scrimmages” against Division I teams and have exhibitions against non-Division I programs.

Football has spring practice and training camp. That, Beamer said, is something he’s wanted changed for years.

“I would love to see in either spring practice or in the month of August where we could actually scrimmage another college football team,” Beamer said. “We’re the only sport at any level — high school, college, pro, any sport — that doesn’t get any kind of preseason scrimmage [or] exhibition game against another team before you go play for real. I’ve been on that soapbox since I was an assistant coach at South Carolina back in 2007 … hasn’t happened, don’t know if it ever will, but that’s one thing that I would love to see.”

Shane Beamer: Transfer portal, NIL sure to be topics at SEC meetings

Beamer also brought up topics he thinks will come up at SEC meetings in Destin later this month. Of course, he thinks NIL and the portal will all but certainly come up in those conversations — and he shed some light on what coaches are saying about those issues.

“I think the majority of coaches out there right now, from a transfer portal standpoint, I think most coaches would like to see some a little bit more of a set calendar or windows, very much like NFL free agency,” Beamer said. “When players can leave and when they can’t leave. And I’m all for if a guy can have the opportunity to better himself and he’s not happy in the situation that he’s in. All for it.

“From a name, image and likeness standpoint, so much of that is out of our hands and in the hands of the government with a lot of it. Certainly have thoughts on that. A lot of our players have really taken advantage of name, image and likeness and been able to do great things. … There’s a lot of thoughts on that. I know it’ll be a big topic of discussion.”