It has never been done before, but impossibilities rarely enter Shane Beamer’s vocabulary. Whatever coach-speak directions South Carolina’s head coach planned for SEC Media Days went out the window Monday when Paul Finebaum interrupted a pre-podium discussion and asked if winning a conference championship was “doable” with the Gamecocks.
For a program without a conference championship since 1969, long before South Carolina entered the SEC, it was a fair question.
“(It’s) very doable, very doable … I mean, we were two points away last season from being in the College Football Playoff and having a chance to compete for a national championship,” Beamer said. “We play in the toughest conference in America and every year is different. Every Saturday, anybody can beat anybody. Some conference you look around, you can chalk up a win, but you can’t do that in this league. Every single Saturday is a war. You come out of this league and you’re one of the best teams.
“We’ve shown it in the past too, Paul. You go back, my last year as an assistant coach with Steve Spurrier was 2010 and we beat Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Clemson, Alabama.”
South Carolina returns two of the best players in the SEC with quarterback LaNorris Sellers and pass rusher Dylan Stewart. Finebaum, however, is simply the latest to wonder if the Gamecocks should justifiably be a part of the SEC title conversation.
“We have everything that we need in Columbia to compete for championships on and off the field,” Beamer said. “I don’t see resources that are lacking at South Carolina. It’s exciting for me as a coach to (try) and do something that’s never been done before. We want nothing more to bring a championship to Columbia.”
South Carolina’s path to Atlanta
The Gamecocks hope to bookend the 2025 season with trips to Mercedes-Benz Stadium since South Carolina opens there Aug. 31 against Virginia Tech. From there, the Gamecocks should be a betting favorite the next four consecutive weeks prior to a midseason showdown at LSU in October — a rematch of last year’s 36-33 loss that included South Carolina jumping out to a two-touchdown lead before an injury to Sellers.
That matchup begins the meat of the SEC slate for Beamer’s team, which plays ranked Oklahoma, Alabama and Ole Miss thereafter over three consecutive weekends. Two of those games are at home, including the Crimson Tide. That was the two-point loss Beamer referenced on Monday that ultimately cost his team their first playoff appearance last season.
South Carolina finished last season on a six-game winning streak under the direction of Sellers’ stratospheric emergence as a top dual-threat in the conference, highlighted by wins over Texas A&M, Missouri and Clemson. Following that same recipe — with one fewer loss — would be enough to push the Gamecocks into the playoff and perhaps, their first trip to Atlanta in December since 2010.
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