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Shane Beamer, Bret Bielema beef continues on New Years Day, spills onto social media

IMG_6598by:Nick Kosko•01/01/25•

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Jeff Blake-Imagn Images/Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The Bret Bielema–Shane Beamer beef continued on social media Wednesday morning with the two exchanging Tweets regarding the Cheez-It Bowl controversy.

If you need to get caught up, Bielema taunted Beamer on the field with a “substitution” signal directed at South Carolina following Beamer’s displeasure with Illinois’ late subs during the game. It slowed the pace and aggravated South Carolina personnel when trying to run their offense.

Responding to a Tweet regarding a video of how Illinois managed the legal, albeit annoying for South Carolina, move, Beamer didn’t want to use excuses.

“Thanks Mr Kilgore -You’re right,” Beamer wrote on Twitter. “Credit to IL. They played well and won the game. Just disappointed that OUR team and I got called ‘unethical’ in a press conference for something we legally did on special teams. I don’t take that lightly. Unethical looks like this – Along w our RB getting his helmet ripped off at the same time, along with the IL player taunting him and then tossing the ball at the Umpire’s leg- Who does nothing. This one is over – On to 2025 – Happy New Year.”

That’s when Bielema had some more fun on social media, quote tweeting Beamer’s explanation.

“Happy New Year and congrats on a great season,” Bielema wrote on Twitter.

Bret Bielema, Shane Beamer keep it going on social media

An actual congrats or just more trolling? Between Bielema and Beamer, it’s probably a little bit of both.

Bielema addressed the situation after the game, noting the beef went back to a previous South Carolina kickoff return.

“I know the only thing that I did was there’s an unwritten philosophy in coaching that when you do this (extends arms) as a college kickoff return guy, what you’re doing is you’re telling everybody else that it’s going to be a fair catch and it’s going to be dead in the end zone when the ball lands,” Bielema explained.

“The reason we do that, and I first got aware of it was in the NFL was kickoff, and kickoff return is the highest percentage of injury in the sport, so one of the things that coaches began to do was everybody out of respect started T-barring. I think these guys would tell you, everybody does that.”

South Carolina’s Juju McDowell made the gesture on a kickoff, then executed a fake designed for Nyck Harbor. That drew Bielema’s ire, as his guys thought the play was dead.

“I’ve never seen it any other way. It’s not an official. There’s nothing illegal,” he said. “They didn’t do anything illegal, but it put us in a position that we now — the ethic of what that is got evaporated there, because our kids stop. So when you’re a kickoff return unit, if I’m running at you and the kickoff returner back there, the guy blocking me, he doesn’t know what’s going on so he’s going to begin to engage you and we see somebody do that before the whistles are blown, you can stop, decelerate, and you don’t have these massive collisions.”