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Becoming Brandon

@becomingbrandon.bsky.social

220 followers 220 following 3.5K posts

College football fan. Gamecocks fan. Cubs fan. Aspiring polymath. AI ultra-skeptic. I could say so much, but I don't go there cuz I don't want to #CFB #Cubs

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Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · Aug 29

A three-post thread collecting all of my specific and random predictions about the SEC this season

1. Two SEC quarterbacks will be in NYC for the Heisman presentation -- no more, no less

2. The most bonkers game will be Vanderbilt at
S.C. Sellers vs. Pavia (if he plays) in a make-or-break game. Vandy generally has a good year if it wins; S.C. generally has a bad season if it loses

3. Texas will not win the SEC Championship

4. Of the following teams, at least one will go 7-5:
Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee

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Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 17h

Mississippi State and North Texas are on here. South Carolina is not.

I cannot find a good-faith basis for arguing that is incorrect

Bill Connelly @espnbillc.bsky.social · 17h

The SP+ top 40 if there were no priors involved. All hail our Red Raider and Hoosier overlords (and LSU's top-ranked defense)!

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 17h

Don't really ever want to hear anything from Woody Allen ever again

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 17h

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/d...

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Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

Anytime Virginia Tech wants to come get their guy...

PodKATT @podkatt.bsky.social · 20h

I know it's just his agent working on getting him an extension, but seeing Brian Kelly's name pop up on lists for Penn St is sustaining me this morning.

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

The thing that always gets me about Columbus Day is that Columbus is at best a marginal character in American history. His "discovery" was of the hemisphere. The most he ever saw of America was some outlying territories. He's not really ours in any meaningful sense

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

I'm going to be a South Carolina fan until I die or the team or conference does a private equity deal. I'm not walking away. But I am radically readjusting expectations of what is possible without changes. We are what our record says we are: A team that can intrigue but never contend

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12/12

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

I'm not anti-Shane Beamer, but I am a realist. I want a team that can consistently win. I want a program that learns from the prior year, that goes for a win rather than playing it safe.

I do not want the Kirk Ferentz of the SEC. But that's what we have

11/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

And that falls apart sooner than later. If you are a mobile quarterback with NFL potential, why would you commit to this program after seeing what gained to Sellers? If you want to win a title, what tells you this program--already an underdog--will ever do it?

10/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

It is the same thing over and over and over. Medicare season, special season (but not as special as it could have been), mediocre season, special season (but...), mediocre season. On a loop. That is what South Carolina is right now

9/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

This program adapts once its back is against the wall. But the problem is that once that happens, your back is already against the wall. If you are always going to get two or three losses in the early part of the season, you are going to be stuck. There is no getting past that

8/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

South Carolina fired its offensive line coach over the weekend, which I cannot say was unjustified. But the offensive line has been a problem essentially since the beginning of the Shane Beamer Era. And when you have a mobile QB and a struggling line, you do not play pro-style football

7/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

You coach with the players you have, you coach to their strengths, you do what you have to in order to win. You do not coach to some idealized version of what good coaching looks like in your head. That is how you get what we have more often than not gotten under Shane Beamer

6/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

Whenever the team has gotten away from that, it has thrived. And then gone right back to the same formula the following year. This is a program that is failing its players. I hate to put it that bluntly. But that's what it is

5/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

This is what I meant five years ago when I said we did not know what a Shane Beamer offense would be because no such thing has ever taken the field. Now we know. It is anxious, coachbrain pro-style offense. No Lincoln Riley, no fancy wrinkles, just screens and five-yard slants

4/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

Which is exactly what we saw in 2023. A team that showed some promise at the end of the previous season, and then ... didn't. If there were lessons learned, they were unlearned. A new offensive coordinator came in and somehow underperformed the old one

3/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

First, South Carolina is going to be lucky to make a bowl game this year. That's the only thing left. Getting there will require at least one upset win. And any bowl team will be a tough out. This team is almost certainly headed to a losing record

2/x

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 20h

I did not watch the South Carolina-LSU game this week. I had previously scheduled a conversation with a friend and saw no reason to postpone for a game I knew we would lose. Thus the lack of postgame thoughts. But we are at the midpoint of the season, and it is time for some blunt assessments

1/x

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Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 1d

Florida Head Coach Trent Dilfer

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 1d

I'll stop with this one, but I couldn't pass it up

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 1d

Reposted by Becoming Brandon

Lauren Brownlow @lebrownlow.bsky.social · 1d

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Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 1d

To put the problem with the Beamer Era into a nutshell, it is this:

The program is built to make the players fit the coaching, rather than the other way around. Unless you are Nick Saban or Kirby Smart, this will fail more often than it succeeds. (And even they tweak things)

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 1d

I actually think that wouldn't be the worst place for him to land. He needs a job where the pressure to win a title is relatively low, because he is the kind of guy who can get you to nine wins most of the time but will never transcend that

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 1d

Bump

Becoming Brandon @becomingbrandon.bsky.social · 2d

Florida Head Coach James Franklin

Nicole Auerbach @nauerbach.com · 2d

Final: Northwestern 22, Penn State 21.

... and Drew Allar injured.

A miserable season for the Nittany Lions marches on.

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