Week 5 has barely settled in, but the pressure is already piling up on a few college football coaches who can feel the ground shifting under them.
The first name squarely in the spotlight is Shane Beamer at South Carolina. His record sits at 35-33 overall and 16-27 in conference play, and Saturday’s loss to Kentucky may have pushed things to a breaking point.
The Gamecocks have now dropped eight straight SEC games and 12 of their last 14 against Power 4 opponents. The bigger problem is how those losses have unfolded: Beamer has already watched seven 10-plus-point leads slip away during his tenure, a sign this team still can’t finish games.
Add in the fact that there have already been fractures inside the locker room, including Dylan Stewart’s suspension, and South Carolina may be nearing a change.
Mike Locksley is another coach whose seat keeps getting hotter. Maryland is 39-52 under him overall and 17-50 in conference play, and the results have done little to suggest the Terps are moving forward in the Big Ten.
Outside of two 8-5 seasons with Taulia Tagovailoa, Locksley’s run has been rough, and Maryland still looks miles away from contending. The larger question now is whether the school is content with being stuck near the bottom of the league or ready to demand something better.
Then there’s Deion Sanders at Colorado, where the shine has worn off fast. Other than the season with his sons and Travis Hunter, the Buffaloes have been abysmal under Sanders.
The attention and the recruits haven’t followed him to Boulder the way Colorado hoped, and the team has looked badly coached. With a bye week coming next week, it wouldn’t be a shock if the program starts thinking about a steadier path forward.
In Other News...
South Carolina Suddenly Has A Coaching Question Fans Cant Ignore
South Carolinas season has reached an uneasy point, with the Gamecocks sitting at 0-3 in SEC play under Shane Beamer in his sixth season. The timing only makes the pressure feel heavier, especially with the teams best player, Dylan Stewart, suspended indefinitely after an altercation that has added another layer of uncertainty around a program already searching for answers.
Shane Beamers job is not suddenly on the line by one bad stretch alone, but the conversation around the coaching staff is no longer hypothetical. With the SEC skid mounting and outside speculation already turning toward possible replacements, the question for South Carolina is less about whether fans are noticing and more about how long the school can afford to let the uncertainty linger. [Read more 🡒]
Gamecocks Blew Another Winnable SEC Game And The Questions Are Growing
South Carolina had this one in hand long enough to make the ending sting even more, building a 17-point lead before letting No. 24 Kentucky claw all the way back in a 35-34 overtime loss. The game fit a frustrating pattern for the Gamecocks, who had chances to put it away but kept leaving openings with a Jabree Coleman fumble and failed fourth-down tries that changed the feel of the afternoon in a hurry.
The defeat was another rough marker in SEC play, stretching South Carolinas conference skid to eight straight and undercutting a four-game winning streak over Kentucky that had helped balance the rivalry. For Shane Beamer, the bigger concern is that these losses keep coming in games that feel winnable, which only deepens the questions around what this team has to clean up before the schedule tightens again. [Read more 🡒]
Shane Beamer Debate Just Got More Uncomfortable For South Carolina Fans
South Carolinas latest SEC setback left another uneasy postgame scene for fans already watching a troubling slide, and it came with an unexpected twist from the other sideline. After Kentuckys 35-34 overtime win, Wildcats coach Will Stein took time in his press conference to praise Shane Beamer, calling the Gamecocks coach elite as South Carolina absorbed its third straight conference loss and a double-digit lead slipped away.
Stein also broke down Kentuckys game-winning two-point conversion in overtime, adding a little more sting to a result that already felt hard enough for South Carolina supporters to process. The Gamecocks have been trying to steady themselves through the league grind, but days like this only sharpen the debate around Beamer and how much patience remains as the losses keep piling up. [Read more 🡒]