Shane Beamer breaks down his thoughts on South Carolina's incoming recruiting class

Shane Beamer hit the recruiting trail and is excited for the Class of 2023 at South Carolina and he didn’t even get to see every Gamecock prospect roll into campus yet.

South Carolina ended with the No. 16 overall recruiting class in the 2023 cycle. It was good for No. 7 in the SEC, which goes to show how loaded the conference is year-to-year.

But a class featuring one five-star and 11 four-stars per the On3 Industry Ranking, Beamer smiled ear-to-ear.

“I think one, it’s a bunch of great guys that come from great families,” Beamer said. “You know, they chose South Carolina for the right reasons and truly want to be there. I think it’s a group of guys that have really connected with one another. Very much like the Class of ‘24 has, the guys that are committed to us. So excited about that. 

“And at least the ones that were  for spring practice, they’re good players that haven’t, you know, there’s none of them that we sit there and say that we really missed on or anything like that we’re excited about all of them and what they bring to the table.”

In the era of NIL and the transfer portal, recruiting only gets tougher for guys like Beamer. While Beamer is successful so far at South Carolina bringing in high schoolers and transfers, the new rules dictate unlimited official visits.

It may seem great on the surface, but Beamer isn’t quite a fan.

“I’m not a fan of the unlimited official visits,” Beamer said. “I mean, I think by the time when the official visits come around, guys, prospects have narrowed down. They know the three, four or five schools and then we had guys that signed with us, it took one official visit or two official visits. It gets tiresome, I think, for the players as well, taking official visits. Then if you’re taking 10, you’re missing days of school at some point and things like that as well. So I’m not a fan of that.”

It was a recruiting rule that came out of left field for Beamer and his South Carolina staff.

“That one kind of came out of nowhere,” Beamer said. “There wasn’t a lot of discussion that we had as coaches or administrators about that. And then some of the rules to our changes to the rules of the game and things like that, those are things that we you know, talk a little bit about …

“I don’t think it’s going to affect the game too much. The clocks are gonna stop in the last two minutes and all that as well. And that’s really from my standpoint where you really become even more cognizant of it.”