Shane Beamer addresses Bangally Kamara redshirting, shares insight into conversation

South Carolina had a surprising departure from its football program on Tuesday as linebacker Bangally Kamara made the decision to redshirt for the rest of the year and enter the transfer portal.

Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer spoke with reporters on Tuesday about what led to that decision. According to Beamer, he and Kamara disagreed on whether or not the senior should keep playing this season or redshirt and return to play for the Gamecocks in 2025.

“He came in my office yesterday and told me that he was redshirting. I told him that that’s not quite how this works, that we could have a discussion about his role and is redshirting best. And we went back and forth a little bit,” Shane Beamer said.

“… My job is to do what’s best for the team, and what was best for the team, in my mind, was [Gally] continuing to play and help us go try to beat Alabama this weekend. And he didn’t quite feel the same way. So in the end I made the decision for him and it was probably best to move on.”

Bangally Kamara has played in four of five games this season, recording 9 tackles, including a tackle for loss.

Shane Beamer was expecting his role to continue to grow after Kamara played a season high in slaps last weekend against Ole Miss, and he clearly wanted the Pittsburgh transfer to stay and help the Gamecocks the rest of the year.

“He was a guy that played a season-high in snaps on Saturday at linebacker, that was going to continue to play more for us moving forward,” Beamer said.

Instead, Bangally Kamara will redshirt, transfer and play somewhere else next season. Beamer added that there are guys on the team who haven’t played much who potentially should sit and redshirt in 2024. However, Kamara, wasn’t one of those players.

“I think his situation’s a little bit different than some,” Beamer said. “There’s guys on our team right now that we’ve had conversations with that, ‘Look, we’re doing what we have to do in 2024 to win football games, but if we can save your redshirt year and not play you in five games, we will,” Beamer said. “Freshmen that have played some, other guys that have started that have played some this year that we’ve had those conversations with that maybe don’t have the role on offense, defense that they want.”