Everything Shane Beamer said after South Carolina's loss to Alabama

Following South Carolina’s 29-22 loss to No. 4 Alabama on Saturday, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“Obviously, a gut-wrenching loss, to say the least. Thanks to our fans, they were unbelievable today. It was hard to hear throughout the game. What an environment coming down Bluff Road when we got here, coming into the game, seeing all the cars with Gamecock flags up and down Bluff Road, all the people holding their hands out the window with the Spurs Up sign. They were awesome. Really proud of our team and how they played today. That’s not a surprise. I mean, I knew we would. That’s who we are. That’s the culture in this football program right now that the culture in our program is stronger than ever, and it was on display today.

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“Give Alabama credit. To be down on the road going into the fourth quarter by eight points, and to do what they did in the fourth quarter, give them credit. Just told our team in the locker room that we’ve got to finish. Got an eight-point lead at home. The crowd is losing their minds in there. It’s electric, and we have to go finish, and we didn’t finish, and they did. So that’s a hurt locker room in there, as you can imagine. Proud of our guys for the way they played inspired football today. We’re going to be sick when we watch this tape. Just missed opportunities that we had. I talked to them at the hotel before we came over here about the 2010 game when we beat Alabama here, and they were number one in the country. And we talked about all the great players in that game that just made so many individual plays. The catch that Alshon Jeffery made on the Alabama sideline that everybody always, you know, still see it all the time, and he made with a one-handed catch, and the way Marcus Lattimore and Stephen Garcia played that day, and Stephon Gilmore and all those guys. We talked about it at the hotel, that’s what won that game that day, team football, and that’s what was going to win the game today, offense, defense, and special teams, team football, and that we were going to have to have a lot of guys make a lot of just great individual plays. And we had a lot of guys that did that, but we had a lot of opportunities that we missed too, of plays that were there to be made, that we didn’t make for whatever reason. So disappointing. Thanks to the fans. Know our guys will respond the right way. We get to go compete again next Saturday in Mississippi, and we’ve got a big challenge, and we’ll get right back to work tomorrow.

“Just a couple of things before opening it up for questions. I want to send my prayers to Jay Philips from 107.5 (The Game). I know he’s getting ready to go through, is going through a tough time, and he’s got a battle in front of him, but I know that Jay’s getting ready to kick the butt of cancer here going forward. Also want to send my prayers to the family of Will McBride. He was a great Gamecock, that you know, back when I was here as an assistant coach, he used to take Coach (Steve) Spurrier and the assistant coaches on a golf trip in February down to the Dominican Republic every year. He was a great friend when I was an assistant coach here, and was a great friend still when I came back as the head coach. Just the sweetest man. And he passed away this week, thinking of him, and I definitely want to shout out, I apologize if I pronounced this wrong, but Gabrielle Brault. She is an Honors College student here at Carolina. She’s a junior. She was studying abroad earlier this year, and while she was studying abroad, she was diagnosed with a very, very, very, very aggressive form of cancer, had to drop out of school, and do everything online as she fights this battle. She’s celebrating her 21st birthday today or tomorrow, and was here in attendance. So what Gamecock nation is about that somebody that’s truly fighting for their lives right now, a junior in college that should be up in the Cockpit with all her friends, and thanks to them today, the Cockpit was awesome. Instead, she’s fighting for her life, but still wanted to come down here for her 21st birthday and watch the Gamecocks play. So wish we’d have been able to get a win for her on her 21st birthday tomorrow, but thinking of you, Gabrielle.”

LaNorris Sellers has always been so steady in his demeanor. Any change in him? And then with the fumble, what do you say to him after that kind of play?

“I didn’t talk to him just now in the locker room. I mean, when (Alabama) broke the run in, we let them score so we could get the ball back. And I went up to him on the sideline. I told him, ‘Look, we just let them score so you get an opportunity to go win this thing.’ And that’s not what happened. And when it was 22-all, I told Mike (Shula) on the headphones, we’ve got the best player in the stadium today, and let’s let him go win it. And we just weren’t quite able to do that.”

You talked about the plays that are going to be just hard to watch on film. With the interception on the pass that went off Rahsul Faison’s hands, and Tree Babalade on the holding, just how tough are those plays for those guys, and what do you say to them after that?

“I told Tree that’s a tough call. You guys saw it better than I did. Looked like he was in a pretty good position, and it looked like one of the greatest NBA players that flops at times in the lane. Maybe he didn’t, but I thought Tree was in a pretty good position. Maybe not, but that’s what I told Tree, just being honest with him. I told Sul when it happened, ‘Look, seven points ain’t gonna win this thing, and we’re gonna need you to come back and carry the same today and help us go win this game.’ As the game went on, we had a lot of great individual plays today, but we had a lot of plays where we missed opportunities. All week long, we’ve been talking about the old adage, practice execution equals game day reality, and what we did in practice just needed to carry over to the game today. Plays that guys made in practice all week, we just missed them today. Didn’t make enough. But that’s what I told those guys. Same thing with (William) Joyce. He missed a kick earlier, but I told him, you have to make something. You may make something to win it. And even after he made the one to take the lead, I told him that you’re gonna have to probably make another one here to help us win this thing too.”

It seemed like the offense and Sellers were moving the pocket more, and he was getting out in space. What kind of wrinkles did you guys put in this last week to give yourself a chance to win today?

“It’s easy to say, simplify, but we were probably less volume in the game plan today, just because I told Mike and the offensive coaches, like, just, we ain’t gonna out scheme Alabama. Let’s get whatever our best freaking stuff is schematically, and let’s get it in the game plan and figure out who our best players are and just feature our best plays, our best players, over and over and over again. I don’t care if you have 10 plays in the game plan, just run those 10 over and over again. So we tried to really dial in; we do that every week. So it’s not a change until game eight to figure that out. We do that every week, but really just kind of trying to condense on what we’re doing.

“We wanted to be able to spread them out a little bit more with a few more open sets, whether it be empty or, you know, two by two, open four wides, whatever you want to call it, just to kind of spread them out and bring less people into the box for our offensive line, tight ends to have to block. We wanted to be able to run him. We threw a couple of wrinkles in there with just some formations and run schemes. And I told Mike earlier in the week, but if we drop back 25 or if we throw 25 passes today, it doesn’t need to be 20 of just sit in the pocket and drop back. We need to be able to move the pocket. We need to throw screens. We need to be able to get the ball out of his hands quickly because we’ve got playmakers at the receiver position and tight end position and running back. And we need to be able to sit in the pocket and throw the ball downfield at times. But we also got to be able to just get the ball out of his hands quick and get them in space and make people have to deal with us.”

Do you second-guess any of the decisions that you made throughout the game?

“Yeah, it’s hard to say right now, we just lost the game. I mean, surely, yeah, we missed a field goal. I’d love to say, well, I wish I’d gone for it and gotten the fourth down. I mean, of course, but I felt good about getting points right there. That was well within (Joyce’s) range. We missed the field goal. But no, man, I thought getting points was big there, and we were in range. We knew it was going to be a four-quarter game and points would be at a premium.”

Just to clarify, was it let the Alabama player score no matter what in the final minute?

“If he got the first down. Same scenario as last year, like if you look back at the game last year, they really shouldn’t have scored the touchdown. If you remember that play, they scored on fourth down. We busted the coverage. The only reason that we had a drive to throw to Nyck (Harbor) and an onside kick was because they scored and gave us the ball back. So what we said, I wanted them to kick while I use my timeouts. I wanted them to kick a 40-something-yard field goal. But we said, if they get the first down, we need to let them score, because otherwise they’re just going to run the clock down and basically kick an extra point to win the game.”

Ty Simpson probably looked at about as uncomfortable as he has in any game all season long. What did you like about your defensive front, your secondary being able to get a hand on a lot of those passes?

“Yeah, you talk about individual efforts. I mean, there were just so many guys up front. I mean, Monkell Goodwine, thought he played his rear end off. This game was important to him being at Alabama. Shawn Murphy, another one from Alabama. Colin Bryant, covering kicks, transferred from Alabama. JO (Justin Okoronkwo) coming from Alabama. I mean, we had a bunch of guys from Alabama ties that this game was important to. Hurt for them, like I do the rest of our team, but I thought Monkell and Nick (Barrett) up front were really disruptive and did a great job. We were confident coming into the game with no disrespect to any team that they had played, but we really felt like we would present them with some problems. And then if you look just statistically in the SEC at pass defense, we statistically, I think, were better in pass defense than anybody they had played. So we liked our matchup out there. I mean, we didn’t do anything different defensively. We wanted to heat him up a lot and put pressure on him and stop the run. And we did that. I mean, they had two yards rushing at halftime, and we did a nice job stopping the run and keeping him in the pocket. Missed a couple sacks that turned into big plays. But proud of the way those guys played up front.”

Is there anything that you think needs to be changed going into your next game?

“Right now, I’m thinking we need to finish in the fourth quarter. You got an eight-point lead at home, and you got a team on the ropes. You’ve got to put them away. And we didn’t. We had an eight-point lead, and we allowed them to go whatever it was, 80 yards down the field and convert some third downs, and we did not play well on offense, defense, or special teams in the fourth quarter. And that’s disappointing, because one of our keys every single week is to dominate the fourth quarter. I don’t know what the record is; he’s the guru, but our record is pretty freaking good around here when we’re leading going into the fourth quarter. And disappointing that we didn’t finish today.”

You’ve had to deal with a lot of tough things this year, and I know at times you probably had the world on your shoulders. How do you personally cope with the things you have to deal with?

“Yeah, it’s hard, you know? And then what I said Tuesday in the press conference is, as the head coach and the leader of this program, I feel like I’m letting a lot of people down, and I know today let a people, a lot of people down, and we weren’t able to get this win because our players put so much into it, and I wish I had something I could say to them and make it better. I know our fans hurt. I just told the team in the locker room, yes, it’s been a tough year, and that weighs heavily on me as the leader of the program and but you know, I don’t see my family much during the week because I’m in the facility, which sucks. But outside of seeing my family when I come home at night, if they’re still awake, the best part of my day is the four hours that I get to spend with the players when they come into our building. They’re just an awesome group of kids, and I really hurt for them, but I love coaching them. I love spending time with them.

“I realize that everybody is looking to me as the head football coach, so I know if it’s weighing on me, then I’m not doing my best to help them. So as I look at it, I’m the leader of the program, and I’ve got to be strong. And one of the things that I’m doing right now with a group of friends, a group of friends outside the program, we’re in a two-year project of reading the Bible from start to finish. So shout out to Coach (Dan) McDonald, the Louisville baseball coach, for giving me the push to do that. It’s been awesome where I read that. One thing that we talked about this week in the lesson was, you know, throughout the Bible, and I understand not everybody in here is people of faith, but throughout the Bible, there’s great stories of leaders showing leadership, and that’s what I’m trying to do. So I know all the haters on social media are gonna say, ‘Look at Beamer. He’s comparing himself to Moses leading the people across the Red Sea.’ That’s not what I’m doing, but it was a great lesson that there’s great leadership. Leaders show leaders leadership at that time. I’m just trying to be the same person and be consistent and stay positive and show great leadership to our people in our program right now.”

How would you evaluate the offensive line play today?

“I thought they were better. There was a play right before the half that we turned to, got free, that was not on the offensive line. So don’t write your articles about the offensive line turning the guy free, because that wasn’t the offensive line. That was just one of our guys on offense not doing their job. And so we’ve got to continue to help our offensive line. There were some plays certainly that they’d like to have back, but I thought they did a pretty good job today against a good front four. One of the ways that you needed to win the game against Alabama was to control the clock. I talked about that with you guys this week. I mean, their time of possession going into these last four games was like, whatever is, 32 minutes every game, and we controlled it for 33. At halftime, we had the ball for 20 minutes compared to 10 or whatever it was. I mean, we controlled the drive. We just got to finish. We’ve got to finish. But yes, I thought the offensive line did a nice job for the most part today. I mean, you talk about individual efforts, there were some good tough running by some of those running backs coming in there on some of those third down situations and fighting for tough yardage to get the first down.”

The feeling of heartbreak after a game like today, does it have value motivation-wise, going forward?

“Yeah, I would think so. I mean, we’ve been heartbroken after every game, because no matter what, no matter how we played in these losses that we’ve had, we’ve truly expected to win every game, and expected to win, and we’re really hurt when we didn’t. This one really, really, really hurts. You’ve got the number four team in the country on the ropes at home, and you let it get away from you. There’s a lot of hurt. So, yeah, they don’t want to have this feeling again. But to me, if we don’t want to feel this feeling again, let’s figure out how to make more plays in the fourth quarter and not let it come down to where, you know, they make more plays than we did.”

You said it earlier this week that you guys came into this game really healthy. How much did that help throughout the game with having so many of those guys that you guys were missing back? And are there any injury updates on the guys that might be banged up?

“It helped having those guys back, because we were healthier than we have been on offense and defense. So that was huge, just from a depth standpoint, to be able to rotate some people in there. And I know we had the five offensive linemen, but I looked in there and we rotated, I saw Nick Sharpe in there in the second half and and we rotated some guys in there. So it helped from a depth standpoint, no question about it, to only have Cason Henry out today that had started a game.

“I think we came out of it, okay. We lost Moe Brown, which you guys know, what a weapon he is on special teams. We lost him to an upper-body injury, I think, on the first punt, when they punted. So he didn’t play the whole game, which is a big loss, because he’s such a weapon. He’s a star on every special team that we have. And then we wanted to be able to get him going a little bit more today on offense, being able to get us 10-15 plays in there. So we lost some of that from a tight end standpoint, and then certainly, we lost our best special teams player. So that was tough. But other than that, I think we came out of it pretty healthy.”

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