Shane Beamer did not sleep off his frustration from Tuesday’s South Carolina bowl loss to Illinois.

The Gamecock’s fourth-year coach credited the Fighting Illini for their 21-17 back-and-forth victory in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl over his South Carolina team, but then proceeded to defend his team in a continued war of words between him and Fighting Illini coach Bret Bielema.

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Beamer tweeted his thoughts on the situation on the first day of 2025.

“Just disappointed that OUR team and I got called ‘unethical’ in a press conference for something we legally did on special teams,” Beamer wrote on social media.

“I don’t take that lightly. Unethical looks like this — along with our (running back) getting his helmet ripped off at the same time, along with the (Illinois) player taunting him and then tossing the ball at the umpire’s leg — who does nothing.”

Beamer had to be held back during the third quarter of the bowl game on Tuesday after it appeared Bielema taunted him with a substitution gesture used by game officials.

“It’s heated and competitive out there but in all my years of being around football I’ve never seen an opposing head coach come over to the opposing team sideline and basically make a gesture towards the opposing head coach,” Beamer said in a postgame news conference. “I think he was upset about something that we did on the kickoff return in regard to Juju McDowell on the throw back to Nyck Harbor but I would say he needs to check the rule book because that’s something we’ve cleared with the officials before game.”

Speaking after the game, Bielema said he made the gesture toward the entire South Carolina sideline, not just Beamer. He made the gesture as he came out to check on an injured Illini player. It was in reference to a lateral pass on a kickoff after he and his team thought the play was already over.

“There’s a unwritten philosophy in coaching that when you do this as college kickoff return guy, what you’re doing is you’re telling everybody else that it’s going to be a fair catch and it’s going to be dead in the end zone when the ball lands,” Bielema told reporters while making the T-bar gesture.

“They didn’t do anything illegal, but it put us, I think, in a position that the ethic of what that is got evaporated there because our kids stopped.”

Both Beamer and Bielema shook hands after the game, but it’s clear the incident is still on the South Carolina coach’s mind.