Beamer surprised at the players lack of confidence upon arrive in Columbia

[18IsTheMan]

No need really to re-litigate the Muschamp era, but it's a slow period for football news.

“The lack of confidence that our players had (was surprising),” Beamer said. “I get it. It had been back-to-back losing seasons. But that was a surprise. Coming in and they had dealt with some adversity obviously the previous two seasons. 2020 was when I got hired. That was the COVID year, so it was kind of crazy for everybody. But just the lack of confidence. The guys, there wasn’t a sense that they were very good. To be an SEC football program and a program that was just a couple years away from being in a bowl game and things like that, that was surprising.”

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www.on3.com

 

[Deleted11512]

What a terrible period the Muschamp era was. Even if you're record isn't very good, you got to have confidence. Muschamp coached like he didn't have confidence either. Hired tired old SEC retreads bc it was the easy thing to do. I don't know RT personally. But I hope the decision to hire WM, then the decision to extend him, still keeps him up at night. That set the program back 8-10 years.

 

[Tngamecock]

Gap scheme integrity can only bring out a certain amount of confidence in anyone

 

[Go Gamecocks]

Gap scheme integrity can only bring out a certain amount of confidence in anyone

All gas, no brakes.

 

[The Reel Ess]

All gas, no brakes.

AND NO BREAKS

 

[The Reel Ess]

I don't really see why he was so surprised. My confidence in them was badly shaken as well.

 

[Cocky99]

Muschamp had no business HC’ing at a D-1 College. I really wish Tanner and the BOT had glanced at his record at Florida before deciding to pick him. Sheesh! Set us back a good decade.

 

[AnsonCock]

Muschamp had no business HC’ing at a D-1 College. I really wish Tanner and the BOT had glanced at his record at Florida before deciding to pick him. Sheesh! Set us back a good decade.

After his Florida record, why did they hire him? Did they think they could pick up a good coach on the cheap? Did they bother to investigate what actually happened at FL? Seems like if they had, they would have learned why he was not successful there. They probably could have interviewed any number of people. Do Power 5 coaches normally get a second chance? Lots of money paid to lose games.

 

[18IsTheMan]

After his Florida record, why did they hire him? Did they think they could pick up a good coach on the cheap? Did they bother to investigate what actually happened at FL? Seems like if they had, they would have learned why he was not successful there. They probably could have interviewed any number of people. Do Power 5 coaches normally get a second chance? Lots of money paid to lose games.

Can't pinpoint all the reasons, but kind of like the NFL, there will always be a premium placed on previous head coaching experience, even if you weren't very good last time you were a head coach. NFL recycles coaches like nobody's business. Now that he's flopped twice, it's unlikely he'll get another shot at P5, unless he takes a G5 or lower HC job first and kills it there. Someone at the P5 would take another shot on him.

 

[Deleted11512]

Can't pinpoint all the reasons, but kind of like the NFL, there will always be a premium placed on previous head coaching experience, even if you weren't very good last time you were a head coach. NFL recycles coaches like nobody's business. Now that he's flopped twice, it's unlikely he'll get another shot at P5, unless he takes a G5 or lower HC job first and kills it there. Someone at the P5 would take another shot on him.

Yeah, RT mentioned his SEC experience as a main selling point.

 

[18IsTheMan]

Yeah, RT mentioned his SEC experience as a main selling point.

I am probably not as hard on Ray as most b/c of the Muschamp hire. Yeah, it was a terrible hire, but we weren't in a great position. The job had just chewed up and spit out a coaching legend, making him quit midseason no less. We had an instate rival who was surging. For Ray, I think it came down to a roll of the dice either way. Roll the dice on damaged goods like Muschamp and hope he would live up to his "next big thing" label he had at Texas? Or roll the dice on an unproven coach? Obviously, the gamble he took didn't pay off.

Of course then you get into him talking SOS into returning when he really wanted to retire. Again, not a good move in hindsight. But, heck, there wasn't a soul who knew how the bottom was about to fall out.

 

[GCJerryUSC]

RT is probably the ONLY power 5 AD that would have hired Mushhead as head FB coach. He wanted to get fired so he could collect that unwarranted extension money and coached and recruited to lose. RT had been around too long to have allowed himself to be played by a loser coach.
One thing about Mushhead he could talk. If he could have coached as well as he ran his mouth, USC would have been CFB champion.

 

[Big JC]

I seem to remember quite a few of the keyboard experts on FGF being thrilled with the Muschamp hire. More than a few went on about how much happier they were with hiring Muschamp than if RT had hired Kirby and how Kirby was going to be a bust at Georgia because he was nothing without Saban. I think Muschamp did the best he could, it just wasn't that great and USC isn't a program with huge built in advantages that can hide a coach's shortcomings.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I think people should be more upset about SOS quitting in the middle of the season. That is a pure insult to the school, the program and the players. I can't think of another head coach of a major college program who has quit mid season simply because he didn't want to coach any more. If I were the AD at USC, whoever it may be and whenever it may be, I would never allow SOS back on campus or in the stadium.

 

[18IsTheMan]

I seem to remember quite a few of the keyboard experts on FGF being thrilled with the Muschamp hire. More than a few went on about how much happier they were with hiring Muschamp than if RT had hired Kirby and how Kirby was going to be a bust at Georgia because he was nothing without Saban. I think Muschamp did the best he could, it just wasn't that great and USC isn't a program with huge built in advantages that can hide a coach's shortcomings.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I think people should be more upset about SOS quitting in the middle of the season. That is a pure insult to the school, the program and the players. I can't think of another head coach of a major college program who has quit mid season simply because he didn't want to coach any more. If I were the AD at USC, whoever it may be and whenever it may be, I would never allow SOS back on campus or in the stadium.

I ended up being fine with the Muschamp hire at the time. As soon as UGA got a sniff of us being interested in Kirby, they locked that down, so we never had a shot there. I didn't think Muschamp was a GREAT hire at the time, but it also seemed apparent to me that nobody was lining up to interview for the job here. Ray could have rolled the dice on a number of other coaches, but anything would have been a roll of the dice. And, hey, after that 2017 season that saw us go 9-4, playing respectably in most of our losses, most fans were feeling pretty good about the trajectory under Muschamp. As you say, hindsight is 20/20.

Much like the Brad Scott hire. It was a no-brainer move at the time. And, after he got us our first ever bowl win in Season 1, fans loved him. But now fans say they always knew it was a bad hire.

 

[Begonenow]

I’m fine with Spurrier quitting. He killed recruiting with the I’ll be here another 2-3 years. No one wants to play for a lame-duck coach, even a legendary coach. The players had quit, recruiting had tanked, spurrier felt like another coach might instill some positivity, and it worked. We played harder at the end of the season. My beef is the 2-3 more years thing.

 

[18IsTheMan]

I’m fine with Spurrier quitting. He killed recruiting with the I’ll be here another 2-3 years. No one wants to play for a lame-duck coach, even a legendary coach. The players had quit, recruiting had tanked, spurrier felt like another coach might instill some positivity, and it worked. We played harder at the end of the season. My beef is the 2-3 more years thing.

I don't know how well it worked. We went 1-5 and lost at home to the Citadel.

 

[FlebusJones]

Muschamp had reached his ceiling when he got up to 9 wins with a lot of Spurrier's players and it was downhill from there. Everyone regardless of your career path or industry has a self image of a ceiling that they believe gets them into a comfort zone. With Muschamp his comfort zone was to win enough games to get to a bowl and stay in the top 25 in recruiting (even if it was 11th in the SEC).

The toughest thing in sports is to change players mindset on what their ceiling can be. If you don't believe you can beat a top 10 team, then it will become a self prophecy. Somehow Beamer convinced our group of rag-tag players that we could beat Tennessee and turn around and beat Clemson. On paper, this should have been a rout for the other team.

As soon as the big wins happen, then the players believe in themselves that they can compete with anyone. We lost half of our starting players and had no business being on the same field as Notre Dame in the bowl game but our players hung tough and lost by a touchdown. We would have lost by 4 touchdowns with Muschamp as coach I believe.