Shane Beamer’s seat is getting hotter by the week, and South Carolina’s slide has made sure of it.
The Gamecocks head into Saturday afternoon’s meeting with Kentucky having dropped seven straight Southeastern Conference games and nine of their last 10 in league play. That stretch includes Saturday’s 49-18 loss at No. 8 Alabama, another rough night in a season that has already turned into a referendum on where the program is headed.
The bigger picture is ugly, too. After going 9-4 in 2024, South Carolina is 6-12 since then, and the Gamecocks have coughed up leads in five of the last seven SEC losses. That kind of pattern has put Beamer squarely on the hot seat, even before Kentucky arrives in Columbia.
Beamer acknowledged Sunday that he had spoken with athletics director Jeremiah Donati about his future, but he made clear his attention was on fixing what’s broken and finding a “better plan” for the Wildcats.
“When you are in this position, you understand that you’re judged on wins and losses. I get that.
But I don’t know about national reports or any of that stuff,” Beamer said Sunday. “All I know is my conversations with my bosses, and it’s been super supportive.
“We’ve got a hell of a football team. We’re not playing like it right now. And it’s my job to get this stuff right and get us playing better football on Saturday.”
The frustration spilled out after the Alabama game, where Beamer didn’t hide from the Gamecocks’ uneven performance.
“We were just too inconsistent tonight, and when you have the inconsistencies that we have, you get your ass embarrassed, and that’s what happened,” Beamer said. “I’m the head coach, it’s on me, and I’ve got to get us playing more consistent football and not as up and down as we are right now.”
He also pointed to the blown pass coverages that helped sink South Carolina, calling them “really disappointing”
There’s another complication looming for the Gamecocks: Dylan Stewart has been suspended indefinitely after throwing a punch at Alabama. Stewart, one of the SEC’s top defensive linemen over the last two years, is viewed as a potential early round NFL draft choice and has been a major problem for Kentucky’s offense in recent seasons.
Beamer said the play was not acceptable and said he was embarrassed by it.
“I saw the play that he got the penalty on. I didn’t see it until just now, and that’s unacceptable,” Beamer said after the game.
“That’s not how we do things around here. I’m embarrassed to see that because that’s not what we’re about.
“Didn’t see it during the game. I knew we had a penalty.
I didn’t know what happened. We’ve got a lot of fiery, emotional, competitive guys, and I love that.
When you’re in the arena, emotions are high.”
Even with the pressure mounting, Beamer said he expects his team to answer against Kentucky.
“We’ve got the right group of young men on our team. We’ve got to make sure that we’re responding the right way from a coaching standpoint, that we’ve got our guys in the best position to go make plays because there are too many plays tonight that aren’t like us,” Beamer said after the Alabama game.
“I’m really disappointed with the way that we performed, coaches and players tonight. So zero doubt about how we will respond. We’ve got the right character of people in that locker room, and what we’ve got to get fixed is not just responding but the mindset of responding with much more consistent play than what we’re showing right now.
“How we respond is how we define what this team is about. We’ve got a big one next Saturday afternoon back in Columbia against a really, really good Kentucky team.
It won’t get easier in this league. We know that.
We’ve got a good football team. We’ve got good coaches.
We’ve got good players.”
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