Shane Beamer explains South Carolina's approach to transfer portal

Perhaps no college football coach has benefitted from the NCAA Transfer Portal more than South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer, who used it to his advantage after just one season at the helm of the Gamecocks.

There’s plenty to be excited about after Beamer’s first year at the helm. First, of course, Beamer far exceeded expectations in his first season with South Carolina: many thought Beamer was one of the lower-level hires of the 2021 coaching cycle. A former tight ends coach at Oklahoma, Beamer had the exact opposite resume of what most Power Five insitutions — let alone, an SEC school — would look for, with zero head coaching experience to date. But despite his resume, and despite South Carolina’s over/under win total being set at 3.5, Beamer managed to go 6-6 with a Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory over North Carolina in year one. Then, of course, there’s the transfer portal.

“We’re not going to turn down a great player, for sure,” Beamer said in his Jan. 14 news conference.

South Carolina did everything but turn down a great player in the NCAA Transfer Portal this season, as he reeled in two behemoth transfers — both from Oklahoma, where he used to coach — in quarterback Spencer Rattler and tight end Austin Stogner. Stogner, a former four-star recruit according to the On3 Consensus, had a down year for Oklahoma, reeling in 14 receptions for 166 yards and three touchdowns, but his 16.2. yards per catch in 2020 revealed big-play potential. And the same goes for Rattler, a former five-star recruit, who looked to be a Heisman Trophy candidate after 2020 but struggled in 2021, eventually losing the starting job to Caleb Williams.

So, how does Beamer approach recruiting in the transfer portal, which has already served to his benefit in just one year at the helm?

“If there’s a great player, certainly we’ll pursue him. Having said that, we’re kind of wide open from that standpoint. If you look at December recruiting, maybe what we didn’t get done that we needed to get done — defensive end, outside linebacker, which was a major need for us in December. We didn’t quite get where we eneded to get there in my opinion,” Beamer said. “We already took one in the transfer portal, doesn’t mean we’re going to take another one but we potentially could.”

Beamer said that the South Carolina staff essentially re-surveyed the roster after December’s early signing period to help identify additional positions of need, perhaps positions that they can seek in the transfer portal. In addition to defensive end and outside linebacker, he mentioned running back as another room for improvement.

“I would say it’s pretty flexible,” Beamer said of South Carolina’s transfer portal recruiting. “We’re kind of looking for everything. There’s two or three guys that we’re talking to right now to see, wait on them to make decisions. And then a lot of that, honestly, will just depend on going through spring practice and where we are and there’s always the flexibility of adding guys after spring practice like we did last year.”