Shane Beamer is familiar with the reality of today’s college football, where this time of year, the Gamecocks are like many other teams facing bowl opt outs and transfer portal departures amid bowl preparation.

Among the transfer portal departures are RB MarShawn Lloyd, TE/FB Jaheim Bell, TE Austin Sogner, and then there’s
DB Cam Smith and DT Zacch Pickens getting ready for the NFL Draft among the players not facing Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl.

At his press conference on Wednesday to introduce new offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, Beamer addressed the roster turnover. Beamer said he wasn’t surprised about the opt outs because of conversations throughout the season.

“Transfers, I don’t think you’re ever surprised,” Beamer said. “It’s tough out there right now, guys. We’re in a great situation here at Carolina. I look around and there’s other schools that have close to 20 right now of their players in the portal and things like that. You just realize that’s part of it, and wish guys that aren’t here well. … Try to leave on good terms and wish them well. I don’t mean this in a negative way, I don’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about the guys that aren’t here. We’ve got a lot of really special young men and people in this program right now that are here and are excited to get back to work and certainly it changes prep a little bit. We were in that situation last year, Luke (Doty) was hurt and Jason (Brown) had already left at quarterback and we weren’t really sure what the quarterback situation would look like, so we’ve been in that situation before.”

Beamer admitted that it would be more challenging as South Carolina begins more focused preparation on Notre Dame on Thursday.

“That’s why we get paid to coach, get creative and try to come up with a game plan,” he said.