Man in the Hat media

Shane Beamer has put the final touches on his inagural coaching staff at South Carolina. Assuming Auburn hasn't hired away any more holdovers from the Will Muschamp era between now and hitting the publish button, the new group of coaches are a departure from Carolina's usual model from the last 20 years. Or nearly 60 years.  LINK: Bobo, Friend head to Auburn LINK: Rocker to Auburn There is not a proven head coach, and when I say proven, I mean a proven track record of what you are likely to expect. With Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier, you got two men that elevated a program, before holding on for one year too long and setting things back. With Muschamp, you got a guy who could do well with other coach's talent before the program bottoming out two years later when he had to worry about more than just the defense and punching white boards.   Now, the head coach has no proven track record as a head coach. All that is known about Beamer is his ability to recruit. The overall st...

South Carolina has hitched it future on Shane Beamer. The first time head coach was officially announced Sunday by the school  LINK: Questions abound with Beamer hire As mentioned yesterday, this hire leaves a lot of questions. While special teams is an affinity that comes with the Beamer name, the new coach has never been an offensive or defensive coordinator. Expect the school to open the pocket book and pay both coordinators between $800,000 and $1 million salaries. That puts extra emphasis on Beamer getting these hires right. News broke late Sunday that South Carolina defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson was not being retained.  Here are some names to keep an eye on for defensive coordinator. Jay Bateman, DC, North Carolina Bateman is in his second year with Mack Brown in Chapel Hill. In his first year he engineered a major  turnaround for the unit, going from allowing 34.5 points per game to 23.7. That number has increased to roughly 28 this year, but in this era ...

South Carolina has its next football coach, and its Shane Beamer. Reports began trickling in late Saturday of the hire and the move was confirmed by multiple news outlets Sunday morning. The news has yet to be made official with a press conference by the school.  Beamer takes over for Will Muschamp, who was fired mid-November after a 59-42 loss to Ole Miss. The loss marked a third straight poor performance for the defense, which gave up 159 points in that stretch.  Muschamp finished with a 28-30 career mark in Columbia, but went 8-13 the final two years. He finished tied ninth, with Warren Giese, in wins among coaches but 12th in win percentage at 48.3 percent.  LINK: Will Muschamp fired at South Carolina. Who should Gamecocks look to replace him? LINK: Gamecock coach records  LINK: College coaches must win now, or else The hiring marks a return to Columbia for Beamer, 43, who was an assistant coach from 2007-2010 under Steve Spurrier. Since leaving Columbia he made...

 Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is in the news again. The previous weekend Swinney's Tigers were scheduled to travel to Talahassee to play Florida State. On the day of the game, it was called off.  According to an ESPN report , Clemson traveled with a player who had tested positive for COVID 19. In short, testing was conducted Friday on both teams, per policy, but Clemson did not get the results back until they were already en route.  The player, an unnamed offensive lineman, was reportedly quarantined and had arrangements to be sent home. That Saturday morning, the teams were informed of the postponement after Florida State reportedly was not comfortable going forward. Clemson-FSU was not the only game affected.  "The ACC also announced a number of schedule changes on Saturday. The Louisville at Boston College game that was moved to Dec. 12 will now be played Nov. 28 and Wake Forest at Louisville has been moved to Dec. 19. The Wake Forest at Duke game will not be r...

Will Muschamp is no longer the head football coach at South Carolina. The move, announced Sunday, closes the book on a four-and-a-half season run, where South Carolina went 28-30, and had been trending down after a 9-4 campaign in 2017.  Fox affiliate WACH's Mike Uva first broke the news on Twitter. Breaking: Will Muschamp has been relieved from his head coaching duties at the University of South Carolina, a source tells me. Mike Bobo will be the team’s interim head coach @wachfox https://t.co/2uDzHN1crD — Mike Uva (@Mike_Uva) November 16, 2020 Much like his four-year run at Florida, Muschamp was unable to put a viable offensive product on the field. Much like his time in Gainesville, things dropped off after year two, where after going 11-2, Muschamp went a combined 10-13 before being shown the door there. Including 2020, South Carolina's offense has ranked no higher than 57th out of 130 nationally in scoring, and that came in 2018. The other years, the offense has been ran...

July 4th in the United States has passed, and the usual pomp and circumstance of cookouts, get-togethers and overall admiration for the founding of the country cappedy by fireworks the following days after went relatively fine. But in the SC high school sports Twitterverse (because that is a thing) a major discussion attempted to take place between Jim Baxter, who runs SC Varsity, and Coby Cornelius, a rising senior football player at Spring Valley in Columbia, SC.  In short, what could have been was a generational-crossing discussion between two people with two very different perspectives and life experiences, and how it helped shape their views, and, possibly, lead to personal growth for both, and those witnessing it. What happened was one man resorting to simplistic talking points, and an excercise in the freedom of speech and how it relates to consequence-free speech ensued.  In short, Baxter posted a harmless, love the founders type post typical on the day. Cornelius then...

Is it safe to come out? Are things back to normal? Yesterday I popped my head out to do my best  Punxsutawney Phil impersonation to see if the world had stopped burning. It had not.  So six more weeks of pandemic? What? It has been five months!?! Back in March I opined on how the Coronavirus had drastically effected the sports world. You can read it in the link below if you like (please). LINK: Coronavirus ends sports as we know it Back then, many sports leagues postponed or cancelled their seasons.  To be honest my initial thought was by the time fall rolled around things would be calmed down, people would have taken the proactive, recommended advice by doctors and scientists and things would be over by July. Apparently I highly underestimated many's goals of achieiving the coveted Darwin awards. With the school restart date looming, it is uncertain at this point if students will be able to go back at all in South Carolina.  And the first domino has fallen for that ...