Shane Beamer says South Carolina can win the SEC in 2025, and it’s hard to dismiss him
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Have you had a chance to fire up the new College Football 26 video game from EA Sports, yet? If you have, maybe you’ve come across South Carolina. For the sake of the structural integrity of your controller, here’s hoping you haven’t had to face the Gamecocks yet. Three of the most unguardable players in the new simulation all play for the Gamecocks.
Quarterback LaNorris Sellers is the fourth-highest-rated passer in the game, and he has the highest strength rating of anyone at his position. Same goes for “trucking,” “stiff arm,” and “break sack.” Sellers is a nightmare to try and tackle.
So, the game developers got that right.
At SEC Media Days, South Carolina’s DQ Smith suggested defenders make “business decisions” when it comes to tackling Sellers. Sellers responded to that suggestion, per ESPN’s Chris Low, in the most baller way imaginable: “At least he told you the truth.”
Elsewhere, South Carolina wide receiver Nyck Harbor is the fastest wideout in the game. The 6-5 track star also has the second-highest jump rating in the game. And then there’s Dylan Stewart, who is the second-highest-rated edge rusher in the game.
South Carolina has 3 players rated 90 or higher in the new college football sim. It also has 2 other players with an 89 rating.
None of that means anything on the football field during fall Saturdays, but it does illustrate a point worth making: South Carolina has expectations in 2025.
Offseasons of hype require regular seasons with substance. Few teams are getting hyped this offseason the way South Carolina is. The star power is there, with Sellers and Stewart particularly dominating at positions of great importance. The foundation has been laid. After a 3-3 start, South Carolina closed the 2024 season with 6 wins in 7 games to carry some major momentum into the offseason.
The Gamecocks closed at No. 19 in the final AP Poll, their highest ranking at season’s end since finishing fourth in 2013. Based on a sampling of “way-too-early” rankings from various media outlets, we can probably assume South Carolina will be inside the top 15 when the preseason AP Poll drops.
Speaking with Paul Finebaum on Monday, coach Shane Beamer told the Mouth of the South that winning the SEC is “very doable” in 2025. The next SEC championship for South Carolina would be the first. The football program hasn’t won a conference title since Sesame Street was in its debut season on television.
“We have everything that we need in Columbia to compete for championships on and off the field,” Beamer told Finebaum. “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.”
When he took the main stage in Atlanta, Beamer was a touch more measured.
“Just because it happened last season doesn’t mean it just automatically happens this year. There are plenty of examples of teams across the country every year in college football that they’re getting pumped up all summer long and then go out Week 1 and get smacked in the face and never recover,” he said. “For our team, it’s making sure our guys realize all the work that went into 2024, it’s going to take all that and more to go where we want to go in 2025.”
To a certain extent, offseason hype is misleading.
Two writers say they like Team X. A third TV personality says they love Team X to cut through the noise. The pursuit of viralability lends itself to escalation. A fourth TV personality at a rival network actually wants to go out on a limb and claim Team X is a national title contender because we aren’t talking about Player Z as much as we should. The reality of the team gets lost in the noise.
Back in January, South Carolina was ranked 10th in Mark Schlabach’s way-too-early Top 25 ranking for ESPN. Bill Connelly’s preseason SP+ ratings have South Carolina sitting 17th.
At BetMGM, the win total for South Carolina is set at 7.5. Eight regular-season wins (or more) has an implied probability of 47%. The Gamecocks are priced at +425 to make the CFP (19% implied). Six teams have better SEC Championship odds.
Most of this is due to the schedule. According to SP+, South Carolina has the seventh-toughest schedule of the 136 FBS teams in 2025.
Beginning on Sept. 20 with a game on the road against Mizzou, South Carolina will play 7 of its final 9 games against teams that rank in the top 21 in preseason SP+. Four of those games are on the road. Two of the other 3 are against the preseason No. 2 and No. 8 teams in SP+.
Three losses last year were enough to exclude the Gamecocks from the College Football Playoff. Only 3 losses in 2025 could very well say South Carolina is more than deserving of a spot in the 12-team field.
But can the Gamecocks actually win 9 games? That’s the question worth asking. South Carolina has star power, yes, but does it have depth? Does it have flaws that can be masked?
According to Game on Paper, the Gamecocks ranked 35th last season in net opponent-adjusted EPA per play. That was the mark of a good-not-great team. The top teams in that specific metric all made the CFP and advanced.
South Carolina was in too many third-and-longs on offense and gave up too many havoc plays to defenses. Sellers was routinely pressured. Among SEC quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks last season, none were pressured at a higher rate than Sellers was, per PFF. He was sacked 33 times in 13 games, including at least 4 times in 5 of South Carolina’s first 6 games.
Another slow start for the offensive line would dampen the excitement in Columbia. Because the best way to unleash Sellers is by keeping him in standard downs when the threat of his legs can keep defenses off balance.
According to Game on Paper, Sellers ranked 47th among qualified FBS passers in EPA per dropback. He ranked 36th in ESPN’s Total QBR metric. When he was pressured, Sellers had a 42.1 passer grade with 15 turnover-worthy plays last season.
He was a first-year starter, so some of that was to be expected. Moving through a second full offseason of work as the leader of a football team should help him tremendously. Having a year’s worth of in-game experience to call on should help as well.
Sellers was money in play-action situations last season. He completed 72% of his play-action throws, according to PFF — 6 percentage points higher than his overall completion rate — and averaged 9.8 yards per pass with 10 touchdowns and no interceptions.
Should the offense excel, it’ll be a run-based attack that sets Sellers up with quick progressions to either attack defenses out of the play-action or take off and run. Rahsul Faison’s eligibility case is so important in this regard, and that’s why you’ve seen the Gamecocks grow increasingly frustrated with the NCAA for dragging its feet. If Beamer has the Utah State transfer running back to lean on, South Carolina will be a darned difficult offense to slow down.
Of course, if Sellers takes a step forward in terms of reading through his progressions, South Carolina can reorient and put more on his plate.
Either way, Beamer has options. He has questions — which make South Carolina less of a shoo-in and more of a lying-in-the-weeds threat — but he isn’t bereft of answers.
Defensively, South Carolina should be stout again.
The Gamecocks ranked 17th in the nation last season in opponent-adjusted EPA per play allowed, according to Game on Paper. They excelled at limiting the chunk plays and winning the money downs. Kyle Kennard led the SEC in sacks. Jalon Kilgore tied for the SEC lead in interceptions.
Kennard was 1 of 5 South Carolina defenders picked in the opening 4 rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft. There are holes to plug on that side of the ball, but South Carolina projects to be just as strong in 2025 as it was in 2024.
“Nothing changes. I know we lost a lot of players, a lot of vocal leaders, but we’re replacing that. It’s not easy to replace, but we know what the standard is,” said senior defensive back DQ Smith. “The identity stays the same. We want to be that tough team, that tough defense that’s really gritty and ready to get down and dirty.”
So far, it seems as if Beamer has been successful in convincing his team that last season’s success means very little for this season’s outlook.
All 3 player representatives at SEC Media Days said the same thing that Beamer said during his podium session.
“The more games you win, the more expectations that you receive,” defensive lineman Nick Barrett said. “We just continue to come in with a chip on our shoulder, the team, to get better. Last season was last season. We understand that’s a whole different story. It’s a whole new team. We gotta do something different this year. We can’t just live off last year.”
When the leaders echo the coach, you know you’re in a good place.
And make no mistake, South Carolina is in a pretty good place. Last season, it lost games to LSU at home by 3 points and to Alabama on the road by 2 points. Flip one of those and the Gamecocks are in the Playoff.
They also won home games against Old Dominion and Mizzou by 4 points. They outscored Clemson 10-0 in the fourth quarter to win by 3 in Death Valley.
Beamer can motivate a hungry team while simultaneously pointing to flaws. He said Monday his best players have a championship mindset. He said their mantra in 2025 is to “take things farther.” He said the goal is to compete for a spot in the Playoff.
“A lot of expectations for 2025, and there should be,” Beamer said. “We’re built for years to come and are going to continue to be good at South Carolina. We are not going anywhere.”
Hard to argue with him. Sellers has been kicking my tail up and down the field since College Football 26 dropped.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
