As fall fades into winter and the temperature gets colder in South Carolina, the seats are heating up for two head coaches. For one coach, it may even be boiling.
Going into the 2025 college football season, many predicted that the Palmetto Bowl between the Clemson Tigers and the South Carolina Gamecocks could have heavy playoff implications. Now, as the season is drawing to a close, that prediction couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Tigers began their season as the No. 4 team in the country in the preseason AP poll. That ranking quickly fell after Clemson dropped its season opener at home against LSU, followed by a near loss to Troy and another loss at Georgia Tech. By Week 4, the Tigers were unranked.
Clemson was not alone in its shaky start to the season, though. Interstate neighbor South Carolina was also trying to put out a dumpster fire.
Coming into the season, the Gamecocks were No. 13 in the AP poll, their first preseason ranking in more than a decade. South Carolina won its opening two games and even jumped Clemson in the AP poll in Week 3. That momentum quickly dwindled, as the Gamecocks got pummeled at home by Vanderbilt, leading them to drop out of the poll in Week 4 alongside Clemson.
After such high hopes coming into the season, neither team was able to turn it around and keep playoff hopes alive. As the teams enter their last regular-season game of the year, only one will be going to a bowl game, leaving nothing on the line for this weekend’s matchup but pride.
While everyone loves a rivalry game, there is no denying that it’s disappointing for it to have no real implications after all the preseason hype. With both teams falling extremely short of expectations, where did it all go wrong?
At the start of the season, Clemson had the No. 26 recruiting class in the country and returned 80% of the 2024 season’s production, the most in the nation. Now sitting at 6-5, there’s a real chance the Tigers finish with a losing record should they fall to the Gamecocks and lose their bowl game.
After close losses to LSU and Georgia Tech, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was adamant that the Tigers were just a couple of plays away from being undefeated. Clemson fans will remember that this was the same verbiage Swinney used after multiple early-season losses in the 2021 and 2023 seasons.
While it’s true that three of Clemson’s five losses have come by a score or less, many feel that there is no excuse to be in that many close games, much less lose them, after the high expectations entering the season. When asking who should take the blame, a quote from Swinney during Clemson’s preseason media outing may be a start: “If we are terrible, y’all can all blame me.”
Compare all that to South Carolina, which had the No. 18 recruiting class in the country, but did not retain nearly as much of its roster. Unlike the Tigers, the Gamecocks won’t even have the chance to play in a bowl game, as they are 4-7 on the season. After starting 3-2, South Carolina dropped five straight games before finally ending that streak against Coastal Carolina this past weekend.
That winless streak includes two losses in which the Gamecocks crumbled late.
In the game against Alabama, South Carolina held an 8-point lead with 10 minutes remaining. The Crimson Tide took nearly eight minutes off the clock and had a successful 2-point conversion to tie the game. With over two minutes left in regulation, the Gamecocks had a chance to pull off the upset, but a fumble by LaNorris Sellers would set Alabama up with great field position to score a game-winning touchdown.
South Carolina found an even worse way to lose two games later against Texas A&M. Going into halftime, the Gamecocks held a 30-3 lead after preventing the Aggies from scoring since their first drive of the game. During his halftime remarks to ESPN, head coach Shane Beamer said that the lead should not have been a surprise in reference to the team’s 24-point victory over Texas A&M from the season prior.
That 27-point lead vanished in the second half, and with South Carolina’s inability to put together a single-scoring drive, the Gamecocks lost in a heartbreaking fashion once again. After the game, Beamer explained that nobody was celebrating at halftime, though that seems to contradict his halftime remarks.
That’s two teams with two disappointing seasons and two head coaches who have made comments that certainly will not sit well with their fan bases. Should either be worried about job security?
Swinney’s résumé speaks for itself: two national titles, eight ACC titles and the winningest head coach in both Clemson and ACC history. Even after a down season like this one, it would be difficult to find a replacement anywhere near Swinney’s caliber, especially with the coaching carousel in full swing across all of college football amid the firings of 10 coaches from Power Four schools.
As for Beamer, that coaching carousel may be the only thing keeping his job safe until next season. During his time at South Carolina, Beamer is 32-29 and has just one bowl appearance in the last three seasons. Those stats are extremely similar to those of former head coach Will Muschamp, who went 28-30 during his tenure with the Gamecocks.
As Clemson continues its 27-year bowl-eligibility streak, Swinney may have bought himself some time to bring the roar back to Death Valley. But for South Carolina, the chickens have come home to roost. Frankly, the Beamer Ball era may have finally run its course.
