Shaded: Beamer, South Carolina get last laugh on Mark Stoops, Kentucky

Perhaps, sunglasses are an effective accessory on the road to changing a college football program.

At least from a cultural standpoint and as it pertains to the previously tepid Kentucky-South Carolina football rivalry in the Southeastern Conference’s Eastern Division.

The pretext: Second-year Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer arrived in July at SEC media days filming a stylized Tik Tok video that featured Beamer dancing and donning some sunglasses.

It was fun; it was in the moment, and it was a popular video that myriad athletics programs across multiple sports.

Blue-collar, Big Blue Nation leader Mark Stoops, his Kentucky program a preseason media darling, apparently took aim at Beamer when he made remarks that “changing a culture” is a lot more difficult than changing the climate.

“It's easy to change a climate,” Stoops said in Atlanta. “You just change the uniforms, talk a little game, dance around and put on some stupid sunglasses and you can change a climate."

When the two teams met Saturday night on the synthetic bluegrass of Kentucky’s Kroger Field, and with the Wildcats without starting quarterback Will Levis, South Carolina scored moments into the game, never trailed and nearly knocked Kentucky from the top 25 with its 24-14 win.

Not too hard to guess what props were featured on the Gamecocks’ postgame celebration inside the visitor’s locker room.

Beamer danced. Beamer wore sunglasses. Beamer had some comments.

“Make sure we’re classy in the postgame with the media, all right?,” Beamer told his players. “But at SEC Media Days, he (Stoops) talked about stupid sunglasses and dancing.”

At that point, multiple Gamecocks can be heard yelling, “Put em on, Coach!”

Beamer then donned the white, mirrored shades, flipped his hat backwards and led the South Carolina locker room in a joyous celebration.