Shane Beamer calls on defense amid 14-14 tie with Jacksonville State: 'We need to tackle better'
Shane Beamer is calling on his defense to improve as South Carolina is tied with Jacksonville State at the moment.
Speaking with the ESPNU crew in-between the first and second quarter, Beamer explained that he’s expecting more out of his team over the rest of the game. Many weren’t expecting a 14-14 tie at this moment, and the South Carolina leader isn’t happy about it.
“We need to tackle better,” Beamer stated. “Doesn’t look very good fundamentally right now. Missing tackles, bad angles, overrunning the ball. Letting a guy run past us in man-free coverage. … We need to create takeaways.
“I’ve been saying for about a month now it seems. We need to create some takeaways, and get the ball back also.”
Jacksonville State aren’t some slouches who South Carolina can just wipe the floor with. They’re 7-2 for a reason. Nevertheless, fans of the Gamecocks — South Carolina, that is — are expecting more over the rest of the game, and Shane Beamer is too.
Shane Beamer not focusing on bowl eligibility in South Carolina locker room
At 2-6 going into the final month of the season, head coach Shane Beamer and the South Carolina Gamecocks are fighting to become bowl-eligible. To get there, though, South Carolina can’t afford to lose another game.
Despite being in that situation, Beamer explained that the Gamecocks aren’t focusing on bowl eligibility within the team’s locker room.
“We talked about it a little bit this morning,” Shane Beamer said. “To me, our mindset, like I understand when you go outside this building all they’re talking about is you got to get bowl-eligible, you’ve got to win four more. They know that.”
With a non-conference game against Jacksonville State on Saturday, that’s where the Gamecocks are focused, rather than a potential bowl game down the road.
“We talked about it this morning that look, we are not going to talk about it in this building every single week. We understand what we have to do. We need to win four games to get bowl eligible. But the first thing, you have to figure out a way to beat Jacksonville State this week,” Beamer said.
“So, let’s not think about the anxiety of what we have to do. You can’t get the fourth win in a row until you get one of them. I know it’s cliche but it’s process. It is focusing on this week and what we have to do to be the very best we can be and be better than we were last week in order to play well against Jacksonville State and hopefully win the game. After that, we will worry about the next one and truly take it one week at a time because if you are thinking about things four weeks down the road, you are not thinking about this week and that is when you are going to get woke up pretty quickly, if you are not.”
Shane Beamer is in his third season at South Carolina. In each of his first two seasons, Beamer managed to go to a bowl game, with a 1-1 record in those bowl games.