Shane Beamer reveals DirecTV dispute, wife played role in learning College GameDay was coming to South Carolina

College GameDay is headed to Columbia for a matchup between South Carolina and LSU in Week 3, and Shane Beamer learned the news in a unique way. The Gamecocks coach revealed in his Sunday conference call that it was his wife, Emily, who first made him aware of the news.

Beamer was on a flight home after a 31-6 win against Kentucky in Lexington on Saturday when his wide first made him aware that the show might be coming to South Carolina. He later confirmed in just before he touched down back home.

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“I was on the plane and my wife had talked to somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody,” the coach said. “One of those type things. She said, ‘I think you’re getting GameDay.’ I’m like, ‘huh? You think that or you know that?’ She kind of told me what she had heard. I found out as we were getting ready for land. I pulled my phone out of my bag and we hadn’t even hit the ground yet. I was trying to find scores of some conference games because this freaking ABC or DirecTV and Disney dispute is killing me.

“We fly Delta and they’ve got DirecTV, so I couldn’t watch any of the games on the TV on the back of the seat. I really didn’t want to log into WiFi and all that stuff. So I was watching the NBC we could pick up. We need to get this DirecTV dispute figured out, please. As I picked up my phone, I was scrolling through social media and it came up before we hit the ground, So right before we landed is when I found out.”

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This marks the first time in a decade that College GameDay will make a trip to Columbia. Beamer has been the coach of the Gamecocks since 2021 and compiled a 22-18 record in that span.

For Beamer, it is his first experience since he was an assistant coach with the Gamecocks in 2010. Now that he gets to take on the environment as a head coach, he’s eager to experience it all over again.

“Excited,” Beamer said. “I think they wouldn’t be coming if they didn’t know what our fan base is about and how excited our fan base will be to have them here. Excited to welcome GameDay here. It will be awesome and pretty cool to have them here.

“I remember as an assistant coach back in 2010 when GameDay came before we played Alabama. I remember finding out. I took a break for lunch. I think we had an off week the week before. Ran over to Subway and I found out my wife called me in and told me GameDay was coming back in 2010. There was great excitement. There was even more excitement last night when she told me she thought GameDay was coming.”

Kickoff between South Carolina and LSU is set for noon ET on Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium.

Shane Beamer discusses impact College GameDay will have on recruiting

Beamer is hopeful that hosting College GameDay can be an opportunity for South Carolina to host recruits in a big-time atmosphere. The Gamecocks brought in the No. 10 class in the 2024 cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking and will hope to get those numbers up soon.

“It’ll be huge,” Beamer said of hosting College Gameday. “Certainly we had a lot of recruits that were already planning on coming to this game regardless. That’s the great thing about yesterday. No disrespect to Notre Dame-Northern Illinois or Iowa-Iowa State, but I think those were really the only other two games on yesterday because I think ESPN had the U.S. Open tennis going on yesterday. So there wasn’t a lot of options at 3:30 to watch college football yesterday, so there were a lot of eyes on us. After that game, there was already a lot of interest from recruits wanting to come to this game on Saturday, and certainly after yesterday there is a lot more that want to be here on Saturday.

“It’ll be a great showcase for our program, our university, for the city of Columbia, for our fan base. So it’ll be great from a recruiting standpoint. We need to go play well. But also, the way I look at it is this will hopefully be the first of many, many times that GameDay is here as long as I’m the head coach at South Carolina.”