Everything Shane Beamer said on the eve of fall camp

Fall camp is set to begin on Friday for South Carolina. Before then, head coach Shane Beamer addressed members of the media on Thursday. Here’s everything he said.

Opening Statement

“I appreciate y’all coming up to Columbia for this. I’m excited to get going. Obviously, today is reporting day for us. Just finished up a first team meeting of the preseason camp 2025 season. Appreciate Dr. (Michael) Amiridis, our school president, coming over and visiting with our players earlier today in that meeting. Just finished up, we’re in some offense, defense meetings right now, they’ll be down here shortly to visit with you guys. Meetings tonight and on the field tomorrow for the first practice. But really, really, really eager to get going. I know every coach in America is talking about the summer they had, and what a good summer it was.

“We’ve got the best strength and conditioning staff in the entire country, and it’s not even close to what those guys do with our players, especially the development part of our guys. I got asked that question at SEC media day about development, and it’s evident with what we’re doing with our players. Does it mean that we’re going to have the greatest season ever this year? Not necessarily, but we’ve gotten better as a team since January. We’ve gotten better as a team this summer, and huge kudos to our guys in the weight room for what they did. Obviously, we talked to everybody. Luke Day hits everything up. He’s got a phenomenal staff, and that’s why I say that we’ve got overall, the best strength and conditioning staff in the country because of the work that we put in, the progress that our guys have made, and then just the entire group, when you talk about Luke Day and Chip Morton and the experience he has in the NFL, and his knowledge and Jamil Walker, who’s been a strength coach in the SEC at multiple schools, and Nate Sedergren, Mitch Okey and Austin Winfree and Will Mullins and Mike Posino and Jacob Kernack. I mean, it’s just, all the interns and assistants, volunteer people, everybody that we had in there is an army of guys that work back there in the weight room with our players throughout the summer, and they did a heck of a job. Just the everybody can track how much somebody benches and squats and how fast they run, that’s pretty easy, but all the information that they’re able to give us as coaches, in regards to what our players are doing, how they’re developing and where they’re deficient, it’s next level, and it’s cutting edge, and it’s a huge part of our success. So we’re grateful for those guys as well, and certainly grateful for them.

“Eager to get going. We had some success last season, not the ultimate success that we can have here as a football program, but we certainly had success in 2024, and when you have success, it’s human nature that’s either going to bring complacency or a hunger to be even better and take things farther. And it’s certainly the success we had last season that has bred hunger to be even better in 2025, and that’s very evident with the way that our guys have worked since they got back in January and throughout the summer. There’s a lot of work to do. By no means have we arrived, and we’re not a finished product. We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and August 31, and then we’ve got a lot of work to do throughout the season as well. But off to a great start, and been a fun day of meeting so far today, it’ll be a fun night tonight, and eager to get out on the field tomorrow morning.”

Injury Report

“Injury-wise, I told you guys I would have an update for you on Thursday, and I do. Ryan Brubaker, Caleb Williams, Jaylen Brown, and Zahbari Sandy will not be active tomorrow. As far as their timetable to return, right now I don’t have one for you; it’s not going to be any time in the near future and we’ll see how things evolve as we get into the season and go into the season but those guys won’t be out there tomorrow and it’s not a short-term thing with those guys. But they’ll be fine and are going to be great players for us here at Carolina. Other than that, we’re in a really good position, been a great summer, and can’t wait to get started.”

How do the Gamecocks plan to replace all the former special teams players, and is there an increased presence?

“No, I’d say, Joe D(eCamillis) even can tell you that I’ve always had an increased presence. Certainly, I’ve got a background on offense and defense from coaching both sides of the ball, but I’ve always been involved with special teams. But no, not really. I’ve already met with them plenty this week, talking about personnel and skiing, and will continue to be, and I’m in every special teams meeting and probably more involved. And Joe D wants me to be from a special team standpoint, but if anything, it would just be, I’ve got to be more I’ve got to do a better job of putting all of our guys, not just the specialists, but all of our guys, and just pressure situations and things like that, and creating those in practice, so maybe a little bit more of those, because we do have guys that will be kicking and punting and snapping in the first game for the first time in a college uniform. But as far as being more involved with special teams. No, it’ll be the same, or it’ll be the same. And certainly we’ll try and be more involved. We want to take things farther in 2025, so I’ll take my involvement even farther, but I’d say it’s been pretty far in four seasons.”

What does the competition at holder look like right now?

“We were very spoiled, obviously having Kai [Kroeger] the last few seasons. And people think that that just happens. I mean, Hunter [Rogers] just walked outside. I just saw Hunter out there. But, you know, his snaps were elite throughout his career, but there were a couple of times where Kai had to get some ones down that maybe weren’t great. So we were very spoiled to have Kai the last few years.

“Right now, it’s kind of a combination of William Joyce, Mason Love, and we’ve been working with Cutter Woods in there a little bit as well. You know, I’ve been around a lot of places where the quarterback was the holder. I know Georgia has done that some in the past. And Cutter is a really good football player, really good athlete. It’s kind of natural at it, and he’s worked at it quite a bit. So a lot of it would depend on what our kicker and punter situation looks like. So you want to have as many just like lawn snapper, you want to have as many guys as you possibly can. But depending on how the competition shakes out at kicker and punter, that will affect the holder position as well. Joyce and Love both know what they’re doing in there. But I feel good about that. I really do. They’ve worked a lot at it. Going back to spring practice, but even this summer, they’d be in here early in the morning before workouts, just getting some holes in those guys. So I think we’ll be okay there.”

Specifically, guys like Tree Babalade, Josiah Thompson and Trovon Baugh, what have you seen from them in terms of their progression?

“Really just spent a lot of time in our team meeting, just talking about those guys specifically with the team Josiah Thompson has developed. Josiah Thompson, I’m pleased and proud. The report is over 300 pounds as of today, which that’s been a, I don’t say battle, but a mission for him, because he came in a little light to play left tackle in the SEC and not only did he do it, he did it at a high level, but he’s really attacked everything. And that goes back to the development in the weight room, training room, Yimmy Rodriguez and nutrition. But he’s been able to put on weight, and now he’s developed and physically, he’s more prepared now to go play offensive tackle in the SEC when we have workouts in the summertime, if a guy’s not quite healthy. So you see all the different, you know, equipment and things like that that we have out here for our guys. But there’s certain things where, if they’ve got a health issue, they are what we call modified, meaning we have all the other offensive linemen pushing this sled today, and the sled is 500 pounds. But because you’re not quite healthy enough, the sled you push is going to be 200 pounds. Well, Tree, Markee Anderson, I’d say, is another one of those guys. They had, they’ve been they’ve had some injuries. They were modified less this summer than they’ve ever been, which means that they’ve taken another step physically.

“Tree’s grown up a lot, and then Tro’s been awesome. Singled him out with the team because he’s really changed his body in a lot of ways, changing his body fat percentage. Jeremiah Donati, our athletic director, texted me over the summer about Tro because Jeremiah would come up here in the evening and kind of work out on his own in the weight room. And one night this summer, he texted me, was like. Every time I come up here, Trovon is always in the weight room. And the guy works his butt off on his own. He gets on the treadmill just trying to lose weight and change his body composition. So really proud of all those young offensive linemen. And that’s one of the things that we talked about as a staff today. I went through with the staff, a lot of the things that have me excited about this team and the development of those young offensive linemen, because we’ve recruited very well at that position. They’re now a year older and have developed more and are the best version of themselves than they’ve been or than they’ve ever been.”

At quarterback how will those reps be broken up and is Luke Doty strictly at that position or is he still kind of floating around?

“Luke is strictly a quarterback. Luke is smart enough where if we needed him to go take some reps at receiver, he could, I shouldn’t say strictly. He’s still working on special teams. He’s still working in the return game. He’s doing all that. But in regards to offensive positions, he’s not doing anything with wide receiver right now. Could he? Absolutely. He’s smart enough, and he knows the offense. We could put him out there and certainly do some things with him from a receiver standpoint, but he’s working at quarterback right now.

“Obviously, LaNorris is the starter going into preseason camp, and those guys are all fighting to be the backup at this point. And Luke’s got the most experience, if we had to, you know, play, if we played Virginia Tech tomorrow, LaNorris had to come out of the game for a play. Luke will be the next quarterback in the game as we stand here today. But that’s one of the things I’m really looking forward to watching and evaluating as we go through the month of August. That second quarterback and third quarterback battle is something that all those guys have had really good summers, and looking forward to seeing how those guys evolve over the next month with the various position battles.”

Pros and Cons of naming someone a starter too early?

“We’ve talked about that too. For us, we’ve got about two weeks of pure just South Carolina, and then two weeks before the first game, we start introducing Virginia Tech, and then obviously we get into the Virginia Tech Week. So I think we’d love to have a general idea as we go into that, not this coming week, not the week after that, but two weeks before the Virginia Tech game. Kind of have a general idea, but also you want to, you want to develop guys. We’ve got a battle with safety going on right now. Obviously, DQ Smith has a chance to be a four-year starter, and should be, but who’s that guy going to be next to him? The guy that replaces Nick Emmanwori, and that’s something that is a battle coming out of spring practice.

“Peyton Williams is the starter, will take the first rep out there tomorrow, but he’s battling some guys, and we need to get all those guys work with DQ Smith so they’re on the field at the same time and communicating, and then as we start getting ready for the opponent, we need to kind of narrow that down, but along those lines too, it’s one of those where, y’all know, we want to develop depth to play a lot of guys. It might be these are the two starting safeties, but we’d love to get it to the point where we can rotate two other safeties in the game too, to be able to rest those guys when needed. Same thing with corner, same thing with wide receivers, same thing with offensive lines. So we want to develop depth, and then as you get a couple of weeks out, I’d love to have things narrowed down, kind of what roles are going into the first game.”

What have you seen from some of the new quarterbacks this summer?

“One, how hard they’ve worked. They’re really competitive guys that have just worked. LaNorris sets a great example with his work ethic and his mindset and just how he does things. And then those guys have come right in and kind of followed his lead, so to speak. They’ve improved. They’ve gotten better, obviously, changing their bodies and getting stronger. You’re talking about a guy in Air who coming in, he’ll be the first to tell you, probably needed to change his body in a lot of ways, and he’s worked hard to do that. Cutter coming from high school, they have great program, great program at Westside, but any freshman coming in wants to get bigger and stronger, and he’s really worked hard to do that. So probably the biggest thing that just stands out with both those guys is just their work ethic and the professionalism to both be young, the professionalism and just pro mentality that both of them have had, not just this summer, but since they got here in January.”

Nyck Harbor says that his choice to focus solely on football this season has done wonders for his ability. Have you seen that from him, and what are you are you looking to get out of him this season?

“Yeah, I’ve seen that really. You know, everybody thinks playing receiver is just lining up, running a 12-yard curl route and catching the ball, and then using your speed and just outrunning everybody, or lining up and just running as fast as you can. And because you’re a world-class track athlete, we just throw the ball deep to you, and you catch it, and you go, score. I wish playing receiver, especially in this level, at this level, was that easy. I mean, there’s so many details at that position, where to line up, what your split is, based on how the defensive back is playing you, how you’re going to release off the line of scrimmage. And this league defensive backs get up in receivers’ faces and want to get their hands on you, and how you get off that, the technique that it takes. And then they’re how you run the route, and then the coverage, the defense plays may change how you run the route. All those things are things that take time.

“He did the best he could last year when he was running track. But until you’re actually out there doing it, there’s a difference in standing on the sideline and hearing it and then actually doing it yourself. And then the work that he’s been able to put in on his own with Coach (Mike) Furrey, or just on his by himself here, you know, out on the practice field or in the indoor, has really allowed him to take another step as a receiver. And he’s got high expectations for himself, as he should, and he’s in a room with a lot of competition. I feel like, I mean, it’s not coach speed, that room has a chance to be the most talented wide receiver room we’ve had here, certainly in my time, and really, probably in a long time here at Carolina, when you was talking about with the freshmen that have come in, the guys that are returning, talented group and Nyck’s in they’re competing and trying to be one of the best ones in there, and has done a good job of progressing.”

Handling the expectations that come with a good season like they had going into 2023 compared to now

“Yeah, great question. It’s something that I’ve thought about a lot, because coming off the finish of 2022 and then going into 2023, the first game was a neutral-site game against an ACC opponent, and we lost. And then the third game was an SEC game, just like it will be this year, and we lost. I was very cognizant of that group. Everybody’s patting them on the back, telling them how great they are, and making sure they don’t listen to it, making sure we keep our edge. And in a lot of ways, I think we did. I think you look back at that 2023 season, injuries had something to do with it. The connection of the team wasn’t bad, but I don’t think it was as good as it could have been.

“So, you know, similarities, I don’t know if there’s a lot. I think this team is maybe a little bit more mature. This team has kept that mentality that I want the team to have, in regards to having an edge about themselves. And I’m not saying that 2023 didn’t, it just feels different. I don’t know. I’m kind of bouncing around, but last year’s team finished on a six-game winning streak in the regular season and then fell short in the bowl game. Brings back a lot, and there’s a great hunger to take things farther. Well, the 2022 team had two great wins to finish the season, and then played our butts off in the bowl game, but we were maybe a little bit more inconsistent leading into that, into the season as well. So it’s a deeper team than that 2023 team. There’s more depth all the way around, and I think there’s enough guys here that certainly remember that 2023 season. But it’s a great example in 2023 and 2024 of just the thin line between winning and losing. Yeah, we went 5-7, but we weren’t that far away from being 7-5 either that season. So just understanding the hard work that it takes. And I think it’s more just off the field, the development, the leadership. But this group’s just got a different way about them. We’re a young team, but just very business-like in how they do things, and that’s the way they’ve been since January.”

Are y’all going to the larger size logo on the side of your helmet compared to the smaller?

“Yes, I think the bigger logo last year was very popular with our players. They wanted to wear it. I think for the first time in that throwback game, not South Carolina State. Who’d we play, though, Akron? Yeah, thank you. Akron was the throwback game, right? And we wore it, I think that’s right. And then they wanted to wear it again against Alabama, and then I think we wore it against Missouri, and then they wanted to wear it in the bowl game, so they like it. LaNorris texted me. I was at dinner in Charleston about two or three weeks ago, and I was at dinner, and LaNorris was just texting me helmets that he likes, that he thinks would be cool to wear this upcoming season, and I know our players like it. So I asked some of those guys between the smaller Gamecock logo and the bigger one. Which one do you guys like? And they all loved it. I think our fans like the bigger logo. So I think that’s what we’re trending towards, for sure, is the bigger logo.”

Is there anything this past offseason that you focused some of your attention on, maybe more than others?

“I would say offensively, you guys have heard me say it plenty, but we’ve turned the ball over too much. From an offensive standpoint, I think last year in this conference, we lost more fumbles than anybody in the league, except for maybe one other team, fumbles. Now we were really good again defensively at taking the ball away, but that’s now a four-year body of work that we’ve turned the ball over too much, whether it be interceptions, fumbles, last year was certainly fumbles. So, looking at okay, we do ball security drills all the time. We emphasize it in practice. But okay, Shane, you need to find better ways of doing it, because clearly, it’s not getting done as well as we would like.

“So that’s something that we looked at and kind of tweaked and changed some things in regards to how we teach it and emphasize it in practice a little bit. That would be one thing that comes to mind. Special teams, we need to be better in the return game. We weren’t good enough there last year. So really trying to emphasize that, whether it be the personnel we’re using, the people that are catching the kicks and the punts schemes, we’re trying, whatever it might be, just trying to get better. So those would be a couple of things that come to mind, but not like that’s just more on the field areas that we need to improve.

“But outside of that, I thought, you know, you always tweak so this year’s, you know, camp model is identical to last year’s in a lot of ways. And I’ll always go back and look at notes from last year. Day one, we had it kind of built in to be a shorter practice as we ramped up, and we ended up just being out there longer than I wanted to be. So tomorrow is going to be, I think, 10 minutes shorter, 15 minutes shorter than last year’s. Day one was just to try and do a good job of ramping up the physical exertion in practice each day. So you’re always tweaking, but as far as major changes or emphasis, more so just football things on the field.”

Is there someone you can name that you can comfortably give first team reps to open fall camp, knowing without 100 percent certainty if Rahsul Faison will be able to play?

“You could, but at the same time, we do so much in practice of guys getting multiple reps. I mean, the running backs will get plenty of work, and we’re doing our team periods and 7-on-7 tomorrow. Early in camp, really, for the first couple of weeks, a week and a half, we’ll do what we call two spots. So there’ll be an offense on one field, running plays against the defense, and then there’ll be an offense on the other field running plays against the defense, so nobody’s standing around. All your guys are getting work, and you’re able to develop guys.

“So the running backs will get plenty of work. And there’ll be days where, whether it be ‘Sul, Oscar (Adaway), Matthew (Fuller) Jawarn (Howell), Bradley (Dunn), I mean, there’s a lot of running backs in there that we want to see all those guys and give them opportunities to compete. But yeah, ‘Sul is a guy that it’s not like we need to just put him over here on the side until we know we need to develop him. And as I said the other day, we’re full speed ahead and he’s going to be eligible until somebody tells us all the laws, that’s the way we’re planning.”

What was your experience with Netflix on the SEC football documentary, and how will it affect recruiting?

“Oh, yeah, I would hope that was the whole reason we did it. I hope we don’t send it to them. I hope they’re watching it. I thought it was really good. They spent a lot of time around our program. I don’t know about the other schools and what they did, but from listening to the Netflix guys, I think they were very they really enjoyed working with us because of the access that we gave them, they were very respectful of things that maybe I said. I’ve always told the players, there’ll never be cameras in this meeting. So I don’t want to make an exception for you guys. I don’t let Justin King film these meetings, so I’m not going to let you. They were very respectful of that. But we gave them a ton of access because we don’t have anything to hide, necessarily. I mean, what you see is what you get with us. And I thought they were good.

“There’s a lot of personal things. I think they were at Brian Kelly’s house or something, maybe in episode one. So we get them and they spend a lot of time with our team, obviously, but then time away from the facility as well, whether it be at my house or, I think, one game, they were in the family section, sat with Emily (Beamer) and the family at the A&M game. They came to one of Hunter’s flag football practices, and I left and had to go recruiting. They didn’t go recruiting with me, but followed me to the airport. I’m not sure exactly what all made different cuts and things like that, but they’ve got a lot of material from South Carolina to choose from, I’ll say that. Ultimately, they can make the show how they want it, but I think the relationship is good, and certainly if I’m a recruit, I’ll watch it from a South Carolina standpoint. There’d be a lot to really like about this program, because we try to give them a very just inside look at what this program is about, and the people in this program also. So I enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty cool. And still being on Netflix, I tried, the whole year they were here to try and get some sort of cameo on the Netflix show Outer Banks. I still haven’t. I see their filming in Charleston and Myrtle, and I still haven’t gotten that call. But Armando Bacot from North Carolina got one once. I was hoping that, since they’re in the Carolinas, we could do something, but that hasn’t happened. But other than that, I was pleased with everything.”

Going into year five, where do you feel you are overall as a program? Is a national championship still the goal?

“Yeah, absolutely. Has there been adversity that we faced? Sure, like any program through the first four years, there have been things that we’ve grown from. But from where we were in December of 2020, when I literally stood in this spot right here, and the team was right here because of covid, and I had my very first team meeting literally right here, from that day in December 2020, when the night before they had been in Lexington, Kentucky, and got hammered pretty good in Lexington. You come and you go from there to where we are now that here. Now, five seasons later, and you’ve accomplished a lot going into a season where you’re probably going to be in preseason rankings, people are talking about you as a potential playoff team. We made a lot of progress, there’s no question about it.

“But also understanding that every year is starting over, and this is a new team, and what we did in 2024 was great, but 2025 is a brand-new season, and we got a lot of work to do. But absolutely, when you look at the you look at what we’re doing academically, the fact that the last two semesters were the greatest semesters academically in the history of South Carolina football, highest GPAs ever last fall semester, and then we shattered the fall record in the spring with what our guys did academically, the way we’re graduating players. So off the field, things are going well. Culture-wise, making good decisions and doing good things off the field, for sure. On the field, what we’ve accomplished, what we’ve done, where we’ve been, where we’re going, recruiting. I understand you’re not going to get all of them, but we’ve done a lot from a recruiting standpoint, made a lot of progress, and we’re still a young team.

“I mean, I know there’s a lot of expectations for this year’s team, and there should be, we got a chance to. I’m excited. We got a chance to have a really good team, but we’re going to be good in years to come as well. And start looking at who could be back in ’26 and ’27 and beyond, and the guys that are interested in our program right now, and the guys that have committed elsewhere that are this summer, that are already reaching back out to us, saying ‘Hey, coach, y’all still interested as well?’ I mean, there’s a lot of excitement about South Carolina football right now. Focused on having a great practice one tomorrow. But if somebody had told me in December 2020 we’d be where we are right now, going into 2025, I would’ve taken it.”

Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!