ESPN insider projects South Carolina’s ‘leader in the clubhouse’ for next head coach
By Keith Farner
Published:
South Carolina’s coaching search may be winding down if the prevailing opinion around the college sports industry is accurate.
ESPN insider Chris Low said on “SEC This Morning” on Tuesday that Oklahoma assistant Shane Beamer is the “leader in the clubhouse for South Carolina….and he should be.” USA Today’s Dan Wolken also backed up Low’s comment with a tweet that said, “This is definitely the current thinking around the industry.”
Beamer has spent the past three seasons at Oklahoma. He was the cornerbacks coach at South Carolina from 2007-08, then served as its linebackers coach/special teams coordinator from 2009-10.
Several of the players Beamer helped recruit at that time have endorsed him as head coach, including former Gamecocks RB Marcus Lattimore and DE Melvin Ingram.
Beamer also in his career across the SEC was a graduate assistant at Tennessee from 2001-03, then was the cornerbacks coach/recruiting coordinator at Mississippi State from 2004-06. Beamer also served as the tight ends coach/special teams coordinator at Georgia from 2016-17.
Beamer, 43, is a native of Charleston, S.C., and is the son of longtime Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer.
In 2018, Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley told The Oklahoman that Beamer should be in line to be a head coach in he future.
“He’s got all the characteristics,” Riley said. “I can’t think of a reason in the world why he wouldn’t. I was impressed with the way he recruited. I was impressed with the way his players played. I loved his background, that he had coached so many different positions.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
