Shane Beamer bashes conspiracy theorists after South Carolina upsets Tennessee

Connor Stalions became a household name in college football as the main character in the Michigan Wolverines’ sign-stealing scandal that loomed over their national championship run. Netflix produced an Untold episode about it, the NCAA punished Michigan, and everyone sort of just moved on.

But South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer hasn’t forgetten.

On Saturday, the South Carolina Gamecocks (4-3) upset the No. 11 Tennessee Volunteers (6-2) when Malik Orsan nailed a 48-yard field goal as time expired.

WHAT AN ENDING

South Carolina beats No. 11 Tennessee on a kick with no time remaining

https://t.co/j6GorK47Qh

— ESPN (@espn) October 24, 2026

Moments into the postgame press conference, Beamer went off script to address the fan conspiracy theory that the Gamecocks only beat Tennessee 63-38 on Nov. 19, 2022, because Michigan and Stalions shared Tennessee’s sideline signals with South Carolina defensive coordinator Clayton White before the game.

“I’m sorry for saying this, but all the bullcrap conspiracy theories from the last four years, hopefully, we can put that crap to bed now,” Beamer said. “I don’t even want to give credence to it and give oxygen to it because it’s so ridiculous. But it’s disrespectful. All these conspiracy theories about the 2022 game.”

Shane Beamer went off on 2022 Tennessee conspiracy theories after beating the Vols:

“It’s disrespectful to our players & coaches that scored 63 points against them that night.

“I don’t know what conspiracy theories they will come up with this year.

“Maybe light from the State Fair.”

— SEC Mike (@MichaelWBratton) October 25, 2026

Beamer continued:

“It’s disrespectful to our fans that were in this stadium that night. It’s disrespectful to our players and coaches that scored 63 points against them that night and held them to 38. So, I don’t know what conspiracy theories they’re gonna come up with this year. Maybe it’s the lights from the state fair or something affected their ability to play. I don’t know.

“But we won the football game in 2022 because we were the better team, so I hope we can put that crap to bed. And we won the game tonight because we were the better football team. So, hopefully, that can be our story.

“Again, I got a lot of respect for Tennessee. I got a master’s degree from Tennessee, and I got a lot of great friends in Knoxville. A lot of great friends on that staff. But that’s embarrassing. All this credence that we’re still talking about this stuff four years later. Hopefully, we’re not talking about that anymore after tonight.”

As with most internet-related matters, especially with the algorithms we’re plagued with now, it’s difficult to identify the origin of this conspiracy theory with any authority. However, it seems to have sparked from Beamer’s comments at this press conference on Nov. 1, 2022.

In response to a question about Missouri appearing to know South Carolina’s signals the week prior, Beamer said, “When we play opponents that we don’t play again, you usually try and connect with those coaches. See what you had on us and what we had on you. Non-conference teams, things like that. We’ve done that often. We dove into a self-scout during the off week and saw some tendencies that we had. Some of the communication that we had with some coaches from some other schools alerted us to some tendencies also. We are no different than any other team.”

In September 2025, Stalions appeared on the Bunch Formation podcast with Chris Vannini and David Ubben and shut down the theory.

Stalions brushed it off as “one of the dozens of conspiracies that are out there” and said he’d only had “one discussion in my life with an SEC team regarding signals,” though he couldn’t remember the team.

“I’ve never met anyone at South Carolina,” Stalions added. “I’ll also say this about Tennessee, too. Joe Milton— I’d ask Joe Milton and Hendon Hooker. They know the truth. I’m tight with both of them. There was no trying to screw over Tennessee.”

As of this writing, Stalions has not joined Beamer in taking a victory lap. He was too busy cracking a viral joke at Ohio State’s expense and tweeting through Michigan’s 13-6 overtime loss to No. 6 Indiana.

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