Everything Shane Beamer said on The Paul Finebaum Show making his case for South Carolina to be in the CFP

More likely than not, South Carolina and most other teams will know where they stand in the hunt for the College Football Playoff come Tuesday night.

While the final rankings and bracket won’t come out until Sunday, the playoff committee will release its penultimate rankings on at 7 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN. In the hours leading up to the latest reveal, head coach Shane Beamer joined The Paul Finebaum Show to make his case for why the Gamecocks should be in the playoff.

Here’s everything Beamer had to say.

On why South Carolina should make the playoff

“Well, first of all, I know the committee has a really hard job. Maybe some people thought when you went to a 12-team playoff that it was going to take away the controversy of who didn’t get in. That when it was a four-team playoff, it was maybe one or two teams that had a beef or complaint each year or case about why they should be in. Well, now when you go to 12, that just adds more. And there’s a lot of deserving teams, don’t get me wrong. I know what kind of conference we play in here in the SEC.

“As far as our team goes, to me if the committee steps back and says right now at this moment, who are the 12 best teams in college football? It’s hard to argue that we’re not one of them in the fact that we’ve won six games in a row. I think four teams that we beat were ranked at the time we beat them. One of only three teams in the country that can say that. Our strength of schedule. We’ve gone on the road and we’ve won three times by a double-digit margin of victory, as well. And I just look at it as a coach. If I’m an opposing team and I see that South Carolina Gamecock logo pop up on the bracket as the team I’m playing in the first round, I can’t imagine there’s many coaches and teams that would be excited to play us right now. That’s just how I see it.

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“We know we would have to go on the road and we’ve done that. We’ve gone to Lexington and won. We’ve gone to Norman, Oklahoma. We’ve gone to Clemson. And I get it, we have three losses — I understand that. But I just look at where we are right now compared to when those losses occurred. We’ve got two losses by a total of five points where we had the ball in plus territory with an opportunity to win or tie the game and we weren’t able to get it done. We’re very blessed. We’re very fortunate. We hope the playoff works out. But we know if it doesn’t that we’re going to a great bowl game somewhere. There’s a lot of excitement and there will continue to be with the opportunity to get a 10th win for this football team, which would be a huge accomplishment, for sure.”

On the challenges of winning in today’s college football, especially in the SEC

“Winning is hard. I was actually on the phone yesterday with Dabo Swinney and he and I were talking about that. Like winning is hard. When you win eight, nine, 10 (games), it’s really hard to win football games. But it’s really hard to win football games in this league. We don’t go into venues where there’s not a hostile crowd. Everywhere we go in this league, you’re dealing with hostile crowds and tough environments. And we played in front of 100,000 people in Tuscaloosa and 80,000+ in Norman, Oklahoma and 80,000+ in Clemson, South Carolina on Saturday. So yeah, it’s hard to win 10 games. It’s hard to win nine games in this league. There’s no question about it.”

On South Carolina’s three losses, especially the ones to Ole Miss and Alabama

“It’s three great teams. Selfishly, I would love for all three of us to get in the playoff. I’ve got great respect for those programs. And I get it, they beat us. There’s no question about it. Nobody is denying that. But also, as I alluded to earlier, when we lost to Ole Miss, that was LaNorris’ first game back from missing a game and a half before that with an injury. He’s continued to improve. The Alabama loss, I think we were a 23-point underdog and we ended up losing by two and it came down to a two-point conversion at the end of the game. So I know head-to-head matters but I also know what we’ve done since then should matter, also.”

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On not having LaNorris Sellers for the second half of the LSU game and how that should be viewed by the committee

“If you look at last year, the committee started a precedent in my mind that injuries are a factor. They kept Florida State out of the playoff last season because of an injury at their quarterback position. Well, if injuries were a factor last year, then to me it’s a factor this year. You have to look at the fact that our starting quarterback did not play the entire second half of the LSU game that we lost by three points. And I’m not saying that we would’ve won, and I don’t wanna take anything away from Coach Kelly and LSU cause they beat us that day. But that was certainly a tough game for us to lose and we didn’t play the entire second half with our quarterback. If injuries were a factor and he’s healthy, we may be sitting here at 10-2 and it’s a moot point.”

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