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College football’s talking season officially commenced Monday with the start of SEC Media Days in Tampa.
The State caught up with ESPN analyst Roman Harper - a former Alabama star and NFL pro bowler - about where things stand with the South Carolina football program entering the 2026 season.
Here are a few highlights of Harper’s thoughts on Shane Beamer and Gamecocks:
Is Shane Beamer on the hot seat?
CBS Sports recently placed Beamer in the top five in hot seat ratings among all college football coaches.
Harper is not one of those people who think Beamer’s hot-seat outlook is that dire.
“I think he deserves more grace. I think he deserves more time,” Harper told The State. “But it is hard to say. You have a quarterback like LaNorris Sellers come through your program, and you don’t come away with more than nine wins in a regular season. That’s hard to kind of swallow, and that’s the part that I would say I could understand how.”
One reason Harper believes Beamer’s job might be secure is, seemingly, South Carolina’s inconsistent history of sustaining success. The Gamecocks have only won 10 or more games in a season four times during the program’s history. Beamer’s peak at South Carolina has been a 9-4 season in 2024.
“I don’t think it should be that hot, just because South Carolina hadn’t gone out and won 11, 10 games year after year after year,” Harper said. “They had a little run with (Steve) Spurrier, but you look at the teams around them - they were down in the East (those years). And now there’s no more sides of the conference, so now everybody’s got to play everybody, and it’s a little bit tougher. You’ve got nine conference games this year; it’s going to be tougher.”
Harper believes South Carolina has struggled to reload after losing talented players to the draft and graduation.
“South Carolina hasn’t been the team and the university that’s been able to just reload talent in a year. ... It’s so hard to do, and at a place like South Carolina, it’s got to be even harder to do. I give them some grace because of that.”
Predicting South Carolina football schedule
If 2026 truly is a prove-it year for Beamer, at least eight wins are likely needed for him to keep his job at South Carolina, Harper believes.
“Eight wins would be great,” Harper said. “Nine wins is outstanding, and if you get to 10, you’re in the playoffs.”
Harper broke down South Carolina’s schedule game-by-game with The State and logged his prediction for the season. Here’s what he said.
- Wins: Kent State, Towson, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Arkansas
- “Tricky” toss-up games: Florida, Tennessee, Clemson
- Losses: Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Georgia
Harper sees a route to seven or eight wins for South Carolina, but he believes they’ll need to pull off one of Beamer’s typical late-season upsets.
“I think South Carolina is a team that could be sneaky good, but things have to fall their way,” Harper said. “You can’t be up 20-30 points versus a Texas A&M and let that game go. … Depending on what you do, you’ve got to knock off Georgia, you’ve got to knock off Texas A&M. You’ve got to have a big upset. You do that, you’re going to get your eight wins. It’s not hard math.”
Harper still high on LaNorris Sellers
The first thing that pops into Harper’s mind when he thinks about South Carolina football right now? LaNorris Sellers.
Sellers entered the 2025 season with Heisman expectations and even had his name floated in first round NFL Draft projections. Instead, he had a bit of a sophomore slump and finished with 2,607 total yards, 18 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
“[Sellers] doesn’t have to be Superman on every play,” Harper said. “If he realizes that, and they use the weapons around him and they’re able to protect him, and he feels comfortable, then there’s no bigger ceiling of any quarterback in college football than LaNorris Sellers. Because of how big he is, how fast he is, his arm strength, his arm talent, and just the ability to go out there and win a game and to do the things that nobody else in college football can do when they have the ball in their hands.”
Harper believes Beamer and new offensive coordinator Kendal Briles will be “judged accordingly” by how Sellers performs in 2026.
The Briles hire should give Sellers and the South Carolina offense “juice,” Harper said. He added that Briles’ ability to create in the run game should help Sellers get comfortable and open the offense up a bit.
