Everything Coastal Carolina coach Tim Beck said about facing South Carolina

Coastal Carolina head coach Tim Beck met with the media on Wednesday to preview the Chanticleers’ upcoming matchup with South Carolina on Saturday. Kickoff is at 4:15 p.m. on SEC Network from Williams-Brice Stadium.

Here’s everything Beck had to say about the matchup and the Gamecocks ahead of this weekend.

What sticks out about South Carolina?

“Yeah, they’re pretty good. Pretty good. Good defensively. Defensive line is good. Defensive ends are good. Vast athletic linebackers, they cover a lot of ground. (LaNorris Sellers) is legit. I mean, hard to technically, really ‘stop them.’ You just kind of have to try to contain them. Dynamic at wide receiver. Special teams play is off the charts right now. Their punt returner (Vicari Swain) is ridiculous. So, I mean, they got a very talented team. They’re very competitive in the league that they play in, which is probably the best league in football. There are a couple of plays here and there in each one of those games to have a different record, and they’ve been in every ball game that they’ve played in. You guys know as well as I do, A&M, Alabama, I mean, there are games they could have, should have won, and way different scenarios.

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“So it’s a good football team, and it’s going to be a tremendous challenge for our guys to how are we going to handle a venue like that? How are we going to handle the speed of the game like that? It’s a much faster football team than we’ve probably seen, a bigger football team, right? But at the end of the day, it comes down to blocking. It comes down to tackling, throwing, catching. Don’t turn the ball over. We can’t beat ourselves. We can’t help them in any way, shape, or form. We have to be able to go up there and play a complete ballgame in all three areas of the game. We’ve got to be sound. We’ve got to make them earn their points. We can’t give them points. You’ve got to tackle well. I mean, everything you could think about trying to play like almost the perfect game, we’ve got to be able to play that.”

What kind of team do you expect you’re going to see on Saturday after what South Carolina went through in Texas A&M, where they were up and lost a 27-point lead?

“Yeah, the mindset of something like that would always be hard. It doesn’t matter what your record is. Anytime you’re beating a team like that and the team comes back, it’s a tough pill to swallow knowing that you have them. But I got a tremendous amount of respect for Shane (Beamer), and he’s going to have his guys ready to play. It’s their last home game. It’s Senior Day. It’s an opportunity for them. They have us this week, Clemson next week. I’m sure they’re building up the Battle of South Carolina and trying to own the state and trying to find ways to motivate the guys to go out there and play. You’ve got some guys that are going to play their last couple of games in the uniform. So I expect everything. I expect those guys to, I mean, we’ve been practicing. I mean every fake, every trick play, everything. They’re gonna bring out all the stops.”

Who are you using to duplicate LaNorris Sellers the best you can in practice this week?

“Good question. I was out there throwing a little bit the other day. Don’t run quite like him. But no, I mean, it’s hard because we’re limited. So it’s more about us doing our jobs and making sure we’re in the right place. It’s hard sometimes to simulate that for us at this level. But we’ve just been doing what we do, really, to be honest, use the guys that we have. I told Jon Hunt, ‘Can you grow and be faster here?’ Try to run harder and faster. So he’s doing the best he can. Love Jon, he does a great job for us.”

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