One other thing I want to say. Looking at the 2 Head Coach hires Donati has made, the Head Football Coach at TCU and the Head Baseball Coach here at SC, if....IF....we have an opening for the Head Football Coach job, I have a lot of trust in Donati to make a good hire. I really, really do.
If Beamer fails to meet expectation and is let go
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I thought the same when Briles was hired and, it concerned me.. But looking further into him, he seems to have adjusted his offenses in the past. So, I'm not as concerned as I was initially. Time will tell.
I know I'm in the minority, but I think moving on from Sellers and Harbor will be advantageous for the offense. Both are great athletes but neither is a great football player at the positions Beamer is letting them play.
If Briles can find a decent QB, an actual QB, not a great athlete RB who is playing QB and a true talented WR, not a TE/DE track star who wants to be a WR, his offense will probably be pretty good.
Did teams have Sellers figured out last season? I know we could put the blame on Shula. But I'm not sure about that. I'm a traditionalist in that I like a pocket passer who can move his feet. I like the 2 back set. Defensively, I like a 4-3 and 5-2. If they were remaking the "Fiddler On The Roof" movie, I would audition for the part of the "father", who pushed for "tradition".
You bring up an interesting thought:
How hard is it to move on from a player in this NIL era who is making $1million or more? I would think the dynamics are much more complex than they used to be. Frankly, I don’t see them benching Sellers or Harbor, not because you’re wrong but because of NIL.
SMU pays Lashlee more than SC pays Beamer, and SMU boosters will contribute far more to football than SC fans. I don't believe a football coach will voluntarily leave SMU or any other athletic program funded by Texas oil men for SC.Rhett Lashlee or Jake Dickert
I believe Beamer's worst and definitely most costly decision was retaining Lonnie Teasley, that was a disastrous choice! I will never understand why he retained him longer than a year or so, he was truly a terrible offensive line coach, one of the absolute worst in college football.
Illinois figured out Sellers in the bowl game after the 2024 season. He wasn't hard to figure out.
I'm with you on the "tradition" thing. The teams that win championships don't do it with unique play. They simply do the fundamentals better than the other team.
Beamer won't bench either one because he is committed to them both and has hitched his wagon to them. Beamer's loyalty caused him to stick with bad asst. coaches and it will make him stick with players who can't get the job done.
I think the NIL thing makes it imperative that coaches move on from underperforming players. Why should a team waste NIL funds on a player who isn't making a difference. Players are employees now, they should be fired, or at least have their NIL money drastically reduced if not eliminated if they don't perform. Players don't have any sort of "right" to be paid NIL money.
"CEO coaches" don't usually win big. A college football coach needs to know the X/O part of football regardless of how he runs the program. The best head coaches generally know either the offense or defense best and try to hire a great coordinator to run the other side of the ball.
I think the element of surprise regarding Sellers was gone after his first season as a starter, plus his physical strength served him well behind such a terrible offensive line. Not many QB's can be successful behind a horrible OL and with a true sorry OC, so perhaps we might see much improved performance from Sellers this season. However, if he struggles, this OC needs to be willing to sit him and go with the next guy.
Utilization of the spy method was very effective agaianst Sellers, as shown in the Illinois bowl game, because he doesnt (didn't, hopefully) have the counterpunch mindset or capability. Aside from that, no one ever mentions the absence of Rocket Sanders in both that bowl game and last season; that was a huge friggin loss that was not replaced. Thats one thing we better hope re-emerges.
When Rocket was in the game, SC had two RBs. Without Rocket, Sellers was the sole RB. Add in the fact that Sellers default setting is to pull the ball down and run when he feels pressure (this is in his DNA) and really is not a great passer, putting a spy on him takes away over half of whatever threat he is as a QB.
The nonstop blame on the OC and OL are only partially correct.
I'm not paying a dime for college athletes. I have 3 grandchildren and I put money in their accounts every month.
in my opinion, one of the reasons Sellers had to run was the very soft OL. Granted, I do agree, Sellers is not a great passer. Still I do believe having a better OL and true college OC should improve Seller's performance. Our offensive line performance was not good for much of the time.
I agree with you, not having Rocket in the bowl game really hurt, it also appeared to me, Shula started to change Sellers, some seemed off with him in that game.
I agree, hopefully Briles does a great job and we are able to retain him, this was a critical hiring decision, along with bringing his OL coach.
for me it was the decision to retain Teasley, I am hoping with this new OL coach we will see marked improvement, go Gamecocks!
I hope the new coaches make a difference. I'm pulling for Beamer. If Beamer survives, he will be a rare Tanner hire in the 3 major men's sports (football, men's basketball and baseball) who has not failed. I don't think Donati is someone who pussyfoots around. He fired a TCU legend when he fired Gary Patterson. TCU built a statue of Patterson, for goodness sakes. Beamer has nowhere near the goodwill of a Gary Patterson. Let's not forget that Donati fired Manieri, who had a national championship on his resume. It's not personal. It's business.
Wrong. He got involved and is helping Shane succeed. He knows Beamer can recruit and build culture. He’s helping him win.
What he knows is that Beamer shouldn't have been hired in the first place. He wouldn't have hired Beamer in a million years. He wants to bring in his own coaches. Like most ADs. What does the buyout drop to next year? I guess you haven't noticed that Donati's predecessor really, really tied his hands up.
If anyone has current information on his buyout that would be good to know. What I found from 2 different sources that his buyout increased from about $13.8 million in 2024 to $27.5 million (for firing without cause) in 2025. If anyone is waiting for a drop it could be a while. I would like to imagine the buyout for firing "with cause" is half that.
Going off memory, but this was discussed during last football season and his buyout was 65% of his remaining contract. So it will go down each year that there isn't an extension.
It is really annoying how we seem to give out raises and extensions very prematurely.
I’ll go with my opinion. He did the same with basketball. Football should work out. Basketball probably will not work out.
There was a quote from some AD a long time ago that went something like "if I have to tell my head coach which asst coach to hire or fire, I have the wrong head coach."
Eventually Beamer will be able to function as a Head Coach all on his own if we keep giving him extensions and patiently waiting for him to learn on the job.
I agree, I believe the first change he was invloved with was the abrupt dismissal of our infamous offensive line coach. Then to hire the caliber of offensive coordinator. Donati is helping Beamer to be successful and I have no issue with that, I like Beamer and want him to be successful here.
He will not be let go good or bad after this year. He is going to have at least 2 years. Beamer is going to be coach here for a long time
Not so. Doesn't work that way. If SC doesn't win 6 games this year and go to a bowl he is gone. Absolutely zero percent chance any SEC school would bring back any coach that went 4-8 and then followed it up with 5-8 or worse. (even Vanderbilt probably now). Same reason Will Muschamp didn't make it. It wasn't his first bad season that got him, it was the second in a row.
Zero percent chance he is brought back if SC doesn't win 6 games.
Having said that, I am really pulling for Shane. I like him and hope he does well. But he doesn't make it if they don't win at least 6 games.
I can see how someone would think he will get another season regardless. But what you have to do is fast forward your thinking and imagine what it would feel like come November if SC is sitting at 3 or 4 wins (assuming the season isn't over yet). Think forward and imagine the sentiment, especially when the roster has players like LaNorris, Harbor, and Dylan Stewart. No way he would survive that.
Of the three players you name, only one is really outstanding, Stewart. Sellers is a mediocre QB and Harbor is a great athlete learning a position.
Everyone was so excited that Harbor signed because he was a 5 star recruit. No one really stopped to think about the reason he signed with SC over the other more successful teams recruiting him. It was because Beamer was the only coach who agreed to let him play WR and run track in college while playing football. He had never played WR before and every other coach told him they wouldn't let him switch to WR or run track.
Sellers is a similar story. Sellers was a great HS QB, but he wasn't really a pure QB. He was a great athlete/RB playing the QB position. That is a great plan for a HS QB, not so much in college. He is a great athlete, but not an SEC level QB. When people talk about a QB and say "he is great but his passing needs work", they are saying "he isn't great".
I think Beamer gets his 6 wins in the regular season and is safe for a couple more years. Unfortunately, I think Beamer is a 5-7 regular season wins coach, regardless of how great the fans think his coordinator and asst. coach hires are. Donati has to decide if that is acceptable. Everybody "likes Shane", the question is, do they like him enough to be happy with a fairly low ceiling?
I agree wirh most of what you said with the exceptions of two statements:
(1) “He is a great athlete, but not an SEC level QB.“
The jury is still out on Sellers. He’s thrown for 5,000 yds, run for 1,000 and accounted for 43 TD’s in two years. Not on fire but definitely has potential if Briles can unleash another aspect we’ve not seen.
(2) “Unfortunately, I think Beamer is a 5-7 regular season wins coach“
Beamer is averaging over 6 wins and he’s yet to have a good OC and OL coach. He’s won 7, 8, and 9 games in 5 years (two dismal years excluded) so it’s possible his ceiling is higher.
Maybe I’m just being optimistic and you may turn out to be right. No one really knows yet.
I simply think 5-7 this season in the SEC is not the appropriate time to jettison Beamer. To me there is still that glimmer of spark and potential until proven otherwise, unlike it was with Muschamp, Scott, or Woods. I’d like to see it mature a little longer myself; what do we have to lose.
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