South Carolina embraces new expectations for 2025
South Carolina football turned heads as the 2024 season rolled along. With that, turning a program around from 5-7 (3-5 SEC) to 9-4 (5-3 SEC) brings high expectations for the year after.
Head coach Shane Beamer said they’re embracing the newfound expectations. However, the Gamecocks aren’t swayed by the outside noise.
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“I think it’s just continuing to remind them that none of that matters,” Beamer said during SEC Media Days. “That really more so now than any other time in probably the history of college football, it’s truly year to year.”
Beamer recalled South Carolina being on the opposite side of the hype during SEC Media Days before the 2024 season in Dallas, Texas.
South Carolina entered 2024’s media days projected to finish No. 13 of 16 SEC schools going into last season.
“Nobody thought we were worth a crap and weren’t saying very good things about us,” Beamer said. “We didn’t listen to it then. We don’t need to be listening to it right now as well.”
South Carolina’s rise in the national media came strong in the season’s final six games. After posting a 3-3 start to 2024, the Gamecocks rattled off six straight wins to close the regular season No. 15 in the country, just on the outside looking in of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoffs.
While getting close stings, it shows every Saturday you have to be at your best for a battle, Beamer said.
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“Everybody wants to talk about the two-point loss to Alabama and the three-point loss to LSU,” Beamer said. “Well, nobody talks about the four-point win against Old Dominion or the three-point win against Clemson or the four-point win against Missouri.”
The expectations heightened when South Carolina’s starting quarterback turned from an unknown three-star freshman to a Heisman Trophy-contending sophomore. FWAA Offensive Freshman of the Year LaNorris Sellers returns to Columbia for his redshirt sophomore season after multiple offers attempted to lure him into the transfer portal.
At the end of the day, despite all the hype and expectations, it’s still just football, Sellers said.
“We’ve still got to do what we’ve got to do,” he said. “We know that as quick as a split, it could turn bad. So, we’ve just got to keep our heads down and work.”
Beamer echoed Sellers’ point with the national media at the podium. The Gamecocks’ success in 2024 doesn’t guarantee the same for 2025, Beamer said.
“So it’s embracing things that we did well, but there are a lot of things that we need to improve on from last season, and we’ve spent a lot of time working on that so that we can be better in ’25,” Beamer said.
