Everything Shane Beamer said previewing South Carolina's matchup with Alabama

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media on Tuesday to preview the Gamecocks’ upcoming matchup with Alabama. Kickoff on Saturday is at 3:30 p.m. on ABC.

Here’s everything Beamer had to say.

Opening statement

“Excited for a new week, grateful for another opportunity to go compete that we get to Saturday in Williams-Brice. Big challenge, Alabama’s got a fantastic team. Coach (Kalen) DeBoer has done an amazing job with them. Great athletes on defense, really good players, and dynamic on special teams. And then a quarterback (Ty Simpson) who is playing better than any quarterback in the nation right now. I mean, this guy is on fire. He’s a great young man. We tried to recruit him here. Great young man, great player, great family, and really happy for his success. Some of the throws he’s made this season, I mean, just are mind-boggling. He’s playing at a high, high, high level. Their offense is operating at a high level. Got a big challenge in front of us, but I know our guys are really looking forward to the opportunity to go compete Saturday afternoon in Williams-Brice Stadium again. Certainly disappointed with last Saturday, but new week, and this is another opportunity for our guys to get better this week and go compete. Hard at it.”

Any update on Dylan Stewart, the other injured guys?

“Should all be good. I think everybody will be back and healthy this week, except Cason Henry. He’ll be out. I don’t think he’ll return this season, so he’s certainly not playing this Saturday. But everybody else was back out there and practicing today.”

Two years ago, you guys had a lot of injuries along the offensive line. I’m assuming you probably tweaked something that year. Do you see some of the same stuff happening as then? Or is this just different?

“I think it’s different. I mean, certainly you do an analysis of it during the season, and something that we’ll look at after the season, in regards to why some of these things and how they occurred. But I think a lot of them are just kind of freak things. You look at it, whether it be, you know, stuff in practice, stuff in games, how we’re training, but we did a lot, like you said, a deep dive a couple years ago because we had such a rash of them two seasons ago. I don’t think this is that, but still, to have as many at one position is concerning and something that we need to look at for sure.”

What are you telling your guys in the locker room to make sure that they stay focused and just go 1-0 each week?

“Yeah, I don’t worry about our guys. We got great young men. You can question how we’re playing, but no one can question the culture of this program. I wish people could see these guys day in, day out, and how much they care, how much they hurt. They want to get it right. So that’s easy for me. I’d be really concerned if I was having to come in here every week and motivate these guys to go practice. I’m not having to do that. These are awesome young men. They love competing, and Saturday’s another opportunity to go compete.”

Are you planning to use Jayden Sellers more frequently throughout the season, along with other freshmen at wide receiver?

“Yeah, I mean, every week, we want to get our best players on the field and give them opportunities to go make plays. And Jayden did a great job offensively. He’s a really good football player. We want to get really good football players on the field. So all those freshmen, I mean, there’s nobody that we said, we’re not trying to get this guy ready to play. We were playing a lot of freshmen, whether it be on offense or defense, or special teams. And we will continue to also.”

You’ve talked a lot about practice mattering in this program. You’ve said the last few weeks you’ve had good weeks of practice. What are some of the disconnects between what you guys do on the practice field vs. what happens in the games?

“Yeah, that’s what is frustrating. I know not all of you have played sports, and that’s okay. There’s great coaches who haven’t coached or haven’t played football who are great coaches. But if you’ve been on a team and you’ve played sports, you know that walk-throughs matter. You know that practices matter. And if you don’t have good practices and you don’t have good walk-throughs, then you’ve got no chance on Saturday. We’ve had really good practices. We’ve had really good walk-throughs, and that’s what’s frustrating for me as a coach, not seeing it carry over on Saturday. So, something that I’m spending a lot of time analyzing and trying to figure out. There’s the old adage, ‘Practice execution equals game day reality,’ and that’s real and continuing to look at why some of the great things we’re doing in practice aren’t translating over to Saturdays.”

How is the outside noise handled internally, in terms of using it as motivation or blocking it out?

“Block it out. If you’re spending time listening to that noise, then you’re not doing the things that you need to be doing to get better. You’re not doing the things that you need to be doing to win. When our players walk out of the locker room, they teach it every day. They see a sign on the door of the locker room that’s there permanently, that says, ‘Starve your distractions, feed your focus.’ And I love that. I mean, starve your distractions, all the things that are cluttering your mind, starve it as much as you can, and feed your focus. Again, I understand there’s noise out there, and there should be. I’m not happy with where we are right now, and I’m going to get it fixed because we’ve got great young men in this program.

“As the leader and as the head coach of this program, I realize that I’m letting a lot of people down right now with the way that we’re playing our players, that I feel like I’m letting down our coaches, our players families, our coaches families, the student body, the 80,000 people that pack Williams-Brice Stadium every Saturday, the state of South Carolina, from Charleston to Myrtle Beach to the Upstate to the Midlands. There’s a lot of people who live and die with Gamecock football on Saturdays. And I get it, they’re not happy, and neither am I. I take that personally, because I truly feel like I’m letting a lot of people down right now, and I’m working hard each and every week to try to get it fixed, making the decisions schematically, personnel-wise, staff-wise, each and every week to get it fixed. And it’s a process, but we’re going to get it fixed. We’re not far off from where we want to be.”

Boaz Stanley spoke about how the offensive line needs to play meaner. How does Shawn Elliott help in that regard?

“Yeah, I think there’s plenty of instances before Coach Elliott got here as the offensive line coach, where we were playing mean up front. I can show you examples on tape of where we did that. There’s multiple plays on that, but certainly that’s a mindset I think that comes from just eliminating clutter in their heads. Not saying that there was, but the more we can do is just eliminate clutter in their heads and make it simple for guys to just go play and come off the ball and not have to think so much. We’ve got tough guys in that offensive line room, and they want to play that way. We just need to continue to help them. And certainly, Shawn’s personality allows that to come out in them, to say the least.”

You’ve talked about fixing it. But where in your mind does that process start? What are the steps you feel like you need to take to get to where you eventually want to be and get back to winning?

“I think it’s week to week, it’s day to day, it’s season to season. I mean, it’s things that I’m looking at each and every day in the short term. It’s the decision I made from a staffing standpoint last week or two weeks ago, to follow up on your question from Saturday, if I felt like more changes on offense were warranted right now, that was best for us, I would certainly do it. I don’t right now, and I see what we’re trying to do, I see how it’s being coached, and I see the people and how they’re working, and it’s not good enough. But I look at it as okay, how can I, as the head coach, continue to do the things right now, in the short term, meaning in the middle of the season, to fix it? And it might be something from a personnel standpoint, who were playing with on offense and defense, and special teams. It may be something that, as the head coach, I step in and say, from a schematic standpoint, we don’t need to be doing this anymore, or we need to be doing this more or less, which I have. We don’t need to be doing this as much, or we need to be doing this more. I’ve done that.

“And then you’re always evaluating, and that’s each day, that’s throughout the season, and then that’s after the season also. It’s like I told our team this morning, we’re 3-4 right now. Nobody’s happy, but nobody’s coming to save us. What we have on this team is what we are right now, and it’s not good enough, but we’ve got the people, the players, and the coaches to get it right this season. It’s cliché, but it’s true. You just go right back to work and just keep trying to get better each and every day.”

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After the game on Saturday, you said that you still had high expectations for this team. In your mind, what is your goal for this team now?

“Like I said on Saturday, I mean, it’s going 1-0 each week, starting this week, which will be a big challenge. But it’s maximizing the potential of this year’s team, and we haven’t reached that potential we have. I as a coach have not gotten the most out of these players and coaches, and that’s what we’re working hard on to do, and that, to me, is still the high hopes and the high expectations that we have to be able to get the most out of this team, whatever that is, record wise, let’s do it and maximize this team.”

When you look at Alabama, they started their season with that loss to Florida State, but now they’ve reeled off four ranked wins in a row. When you look at what they’re doing, what are they doing so well that’s allowing them to be on this streak of really good wins?

“Going back to the Florida State game, I didn’t really watch that game because that was the day before we played Virginia Tech, and we were traveling, and all I saw was the score. You turn on that, you think, man, you hear all this narrative about the Alabama and Florida State game. You turn on the tape, and it wasn’t quite the beating that, perception-wise, everybody across the country made it out to be. I know Alabama expected to win that game, and we’re disappointed that they didn’t, but that thing was very close. It could have gone either way. And then what I’ve seen since then, you know, defense has had some injuries, but they are affecting the quarterback. They’re opportunistic in their ability to pressure the quarterback. They’ve got some real dudes on the edge that can rush the passer, being able to just get stops, like they had against Tennessee the other night, where they had the 100-yard interception return for a touchdown before the half.

“But then I think just the offense in the way they’re operating, I mean, Ty, the quarterback, I think he’s 18-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. That’s crazy. So he’s throwing touchdowns, he’s not turning the ball over, and then they’re holding on to the ball. If you look at their time of possession in their last four games, it’s like 38 minutes, 36 minutes, 35, and 32 maybe. So they’re controlling the ball, not meaning they’re like ground and pound. They’re just staying on the field, and they’re operating at a high level, and their defense isn’t having to be out there long because the offense is moving the ball efficiently and protecting it. They’re not turning it over and they’re moving the ball, which is a pretty good combination to have as an offense.”

Are the three guys who were suspended last week, are they back at practice?

“Yes.”

As you look through it this week with you and Mike Shula and the rest of the offensive staff, do you think you need less or do you think you need more?

“Yes.”

You mentioned that when there’s a lot of noise, the players in the locker room don’t listen to it, but when there is noise, maybe surrounding the coaching staff. How does it work when you’re talking with them about the noise and tuning it out?

“Same. I’d love to say they’re grown men and don’t look at social media, and hopefully they don’t. I mean, I picked up my phone a couple of times, just so you gotta have it. I’m not even going to try. I don’t know. These guys are pros. This isn’t their first rodeo. There’s gonna be criticism. I saw a great article, a great quote from Nick Sirianni, the head coach of the Eagles, that he told a reporter the other day after they started out the season, and then they lost a couple of games, and the masses were not happy in Philadelphia. And it was kind of along those lines. If you’re listening to that or you’re allowing it to clutter your mind, you’re not doing the things you need to do to get it right.

“If any of our coaches are worried about the outside noise, they’re not doing everything in their power to fix it, because me pop scrolling on social media to see what people are saying about me is not helping me get it right for our players. Why poison my brain or thoughts with that, and that’s what I would encourage the coaches. But it’s a great thing too, in the sense that you want to be somewhere where people are passionate, and you want to be somewhere where people have high expectations. There were high expectations for us last year because of what we did. There were high expectations for us because we were two points away from being in the College Football Playoff, and we haven’t met those expectations. The fans should be unhappy about that, and I don’t blame them. You want to be somewhere where people are passionate and have those expectations, and that’s what we have here at Carolina, and I’m grateful for that. I wish those people could see our players and the way they and coaches, the way they hurt, and how they’re working. And ultimately, as a leader, it’s my job to do the things we need to do to get it right, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Through a coaching change, and even with the injuries on the offensive line, how difficult can that be to find that identity up front, and how can you and Elliott help to build that through the back half of the season?

“It’s a challenge. And before Coach Elliott took over, again, there had been some really positive signs of the offensive line playing better in the fourth quarter of the Kentucky game and the way we ran the ball and the way we ran the ball against them. The LSU game, where it wasn’t good enough, but from a run game standpoint, we ran the ball against LSU. Now we had too many sacks and too many penalties, but we ran the ball. So there are signs of that identity that we saw before Coach Elliott took over last week. It wasn’t the ideal situation when Coach Elliott takes over, he’s got three starters out, three guys that have started games, and then during the game, we have three other guys that had started the game that have to leave because of injuries, and we’re out there with a true freshman left tackle and some other guys that were beat up by the end going up against the number one defense, I think, in the nation and just really, really, really good with really good players. It’s going to be hard to just say, okay, coaching change, flip the identity. So what I saw was just small steps at a time.

“We didn’t have any penalties on offense last week, none that I’m aware of. So knock on wood. That’s a start. Don’t think that team we just played wasn’t making move calls and being disruptive. They were. We did a heck of a job by our guys just being disciplined, and again doesn’t mean we’re never going to have a pre-snap penalty again, but because we will. But those guys did a great job up front of taking a step and showing their identity that way. That’s a prideful group in there, and we’ve got good players on the offensive line. That’s what I told our team this morning. I mean, we got offensive linemen in that room that were recruited by everybody in the country and are big-time players. We need to continue to help them. But that starts with getting healthy, which we’re healthier now than we’ve been, I guess, probably since the Missouri game. And it’s week two now with Shawn, where they have a better understanding of what Shawn’s going to be like during the week, what he’s going to be like in practice, what he’s going to be like on game day. They know all that now. So I would hope that they would take another step this week in regards to what they want to be about, because there were a lot of positive signs trending in that direction before I made the change, and there were positive signs that I saw last week during the game.”

Besides Cason Henry, are the other five offensive linemen who were banged up good to go?

“Tro (Baugh) was at practice today. Nick Sharpe was at practice today. Tree (Babalade) practiced today. Nolan Hay practiced today. Yes, every offensive lineman except for Cason, who has played in games, practiced today. … Shed (Sarratt) practiced today.”

For the guys who played in the Alabama game last year in coming so close, can they relate to the others about it’s Alabama, and they’re really good, but we showed last year we could play with them, and we can beat them here?

“Yeah, I think our guys have that understanding or that belief anyway, you know, based on who we believe we are, whether it’s Alabama or anybody in this league. We have that confidence to go play on Saturday. But certainly, there are a lot of guys that were there and a lot of guys that made plays in that game that are back. Watching that tape of the game on all three phases, I mean, it’s just like every Saturday, it’s a handful of plays that you either make or you don’t make. And we made some great plays in that game last season, and then there were some plays to be made on offense, defense, and special teams, where we just didn’t quite make it. That could have been the difference in the game. But there’s no question our guys have that belief and confidence. I would hope they would understand, based on where we are right now and what they’ve seen through these first seven games, that every play matters, and in this league, it is every single week, whether it’s Texas-Kentucky the other night or Georgia-Auburn, or Georgia-Tennessee, Georgia-Alabama, whoever. I mean, there’s just so many close games every single Saturday, and every play matters.”

To follow up on your statement about the penalties, how do you look to make that a consistent thing going forward for the rest of the season?

“Yeah, just continuing to emphasize it. I mean, we didn’t emphasize it or talk about it anymore or any less last week than what we had done the week before, when we had 14 or whatever it was against LSU, so just stay consistent with how we’re emphasizing it in practice, how we’re emphasizing it during the week. And then I believe it starts with just their frame of mind. Are they thinking too much about what to do? Are they thinking too much about what the defense is doing, and they lose focus on not moving when the team makes a move call, or whatever it might be? So just helping to eliminate the clutter in their heads, so they can be free and get lined up and go play football. And again, there’s going to be a pre-snap penalty. And there was, you know, I think just Alabama came to mind, first play of the game last year, Alabama vs. LSU in Baton Rouge. Alabama has a false start on the very first play of the game. Alabama’s offense, well, they went on and scored whatever it was, 42 or something against LSU that night. So there’s going to be pre-snap penalties, but we can’t have whatever it was, eight of them, like I think we had against LSU. So just continue to emphasize it. It starts with the frame of mind as they get lined up and get ready to play each and every play.”

You mentioned briefly on Saturday that Vicari Swain had broken his finger last week, but he was able to go back out there and play in the game. Can you just take us through your perspective on how that whole situation played out in practice? What’s going through your head when that happens? And then, how good is it to see him tough it out, and does that positively affect the team?

“Yeah, I’m glad you asked. It was Wednesday, and we were catching punts before practice like we always do. I was over on the one field where we were working with some of our punt pressure guys on fundamental stuff. The returners were on the other field. Clint (Haggard), our trainer, came to me and told me that Vicari had dislocated his finger, and they had him in the training room, and they couldn’t get it back in, meaning they were trying to pop it back in so he could go back and practice. So dislocated, broke, whatever, they couldn’t get it back in. And then he came back out to me, he’s like, ‘We still can’t get it in. We’re bringing in an outside doctor, like a hand surgeon, to see if he can do it.’ But part of the reason we might not be able to get it back in is, not to bore y’all with details, but I guess in fingers, there’s some sort of little bone or something that’s like a washer that got like bent up in his fingers that was preventing it from getting popped back in. So they had to go in there and do a surgical procedure.

“So he went to the hospital that afternoon to get it done, thinking they were going to get it done immediately. And then, I think, unfortunately, there were some trauma cases that came into the ER, so we had to wait. So I was texting him throughout the day, just checking on and he was like, ‘I’m good. I’m just hungry,’ because he was getting ready to have surgery, and then you’re sitting there thinking you’ve got to be freaking kidding me, like our punt returner three days before the Oklahoma game is in the hospital with a broken finger. So in my mind, I’m thinking there’s no way he’s going to be able to catch punts, much less play. And then he got done with the surgery, texted me that he was done, that he was good, and he’s playing Saturday. Thursday, we kind of rested him to let that finger just heal from the procedure. And then he started out Friday afternoon, catching just some Nerf balls out there on the practice field. We always go to the stadium for a walk-through, but before all that, he was catching some Nerf balls just to get a feel for it. And then when the walk-through was over in the stadium on Friday, we shot like in a JUGS Machine, real balls that he had to catch, and he did it, so you feel pretty good about it. You’re like, ‘OK.’ And then you guys see us in pregame warmups. He always catches the punt at the end of pregame. We punt, we cover, he catches it, then we run into the locker room, and he told Jalon (Kilgore) to catch it. And I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘Jalon needs to catch it. I don’t want to drop it.’ I’m like, ‘Well, buddy, you’re about to play in 30 minutes, so we’ve gotta get it out of our system now if we’re gonna drop one.’

“And then to go out there and do what he did, not just catch punts, but to be able to play with the physicality he did play and play DB, it says a lot about him. But yes, absolutely, that’s a rallying thing for this team. It kind of goes back to, I think I alluded to it in the press conference after the game, that’s what gives one of the many reasons that gives me so much hope, is the guys that fought to get back out there. I mentioned Caleb Williams breaking his leg in practice, which is awful, but like five minutes before that, Monkell Goodwine got rolled up and had to get helped off the field. This is on Thursday, and you lose two defensive tackles within like five minutes, and you already got one suspended, and you’re sitting there saying, like, ‘Who can play tackle for us on Saturday?’ And then for Kell to fight to get back out there, Brandon Cisse to fight to get back out there, Gabe (Brownlow-Dindy), who had an upper body injury all week and wasn’t really sure he was going to be able to play, to fight to get back out there, and to see that with Vicari, that was pretty awesome. And then guys that got banged up on Saturday that just refused to come out and laid it all on the line. So that’s what I love about coaching these guys, because it’s important to them. But definitely, what Vicari did was a rallying thing for a lot of guys.”

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Henry has battled through and dealt with his share of injuries before. How is he doing now that he’s going through another tough injury situation?

“He’s doing okay. I know he’s frustrated. I mean, that’s one of the leaders on our offensive line and one of the guys that plays with the right mentality that you want on the offensive line. So I hate it for him; he’s frustrated. To dislocate his shoulder on the very first play of the Missouri game, jog off, that’s not ideal for anybody. I think, from Cason’s standpoint, he just wants to get it fixed and be able to be healthy, and he hasn’t been able to do that a lot during his time here. I met with him yesterday, had a lot of individual meetings with guys the last few days, but all positive. But met with Cason yesterday, and he’s frustrated, but in good spirits. He’s just eager to get well to where he can play and play the way that he wants to play.”

It seems to be a surprise that the offensive line has struggled this badly throughout this season. Looking back, is there anything that you guys maybe could have done differently as coaches, not to be so surprised next time?

“Good question. I felt good coming into it. When you looked at our offensive line last season at this time, I knew we were losing our center and both guards, and we knew that we needed to replace those guys. And as I looked at it last year, at this time, I knew we had Shed coming. I knew we had Markee coming back, we had Tro, we had guys in the interior of the offensive line that we felt good about, and then when you bring back both your tackles, you really feel good about it, and Tavi (Shivers) and Tree. So there are four offensive tackles. I mean, Tavi played the whole second half of the Alabama game last year, basically. So that’s four tackles. And then you got some talented guys that you’ve recruited that I said, ‘Okay, it’s time for them to now take the next step as players, but we need to go out in the portal and increase the depth on the interior of the offensive line,’ and we did that. I mean, we brought in guys like Boaz and Rodney and Nick and liked their tape — still do.

“I watched Nick Sharpe’s tape last year when he was at Wake Forest playing Clemson and Ole Miss, which y’all know they’ve got defensive linemen and were really doing a nice job in those games. There were other offensive linemen that we tried to get in the portal who chose not to come. I can’t make guys come here. And there were guys that we brought there, you know, two of them, three of them we brought in on visits that are starting at other SEC schools right now. They came here on a visit, and for whatever reason, they chose not to come here. But felt good about that group coming into it because of who we returned and the guys we brought in. And I would certainly be lying to you if I said I wish we had made more progress with them. There’s no doubt about it, we haven’t progressed fast enough. But not to make excuses, it’s been tough, and we’ve started three different centers. We’ve had different offensive tackles because of injuries and different guys have been banged up in there, but optimistic that those guys can, going back to a successful season, can maximize their potential here over these last five regular-season games and take the steps and be the players that we want them to be.”

You mentioned that you’ve had several individual player meetings here recently in the last few days. Is that more so than usual, or what’s kind of brought that about, that those have been required?

“I wouldn’t say more so than usual. My door is always open, and I meet with guys regularly. So this isn’t one of those, like, oh my God crises, I started having individual meetings. Some were just me bringing in some guys on offense and defense, just to really check on them, and hey, man, how are you doing? And how can I help you? Having those conversations. One was a player that a freshman, actually, who wanted to meet with me, who came into my office and honestly got emotional to say, ‘I want to be doing more to help the team. I hate losing, and we got the right people on this team. I want to be doing more to help us,’ which, I mean, I told him that’s the best thing that happened to me yesterday was seeing a guy like that come in that cares and wants to get it right. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, a freshman texts you at 10 o’clock on Sunday night that he wants to meet with you the next day, you’re like, ‘Oh crap. He wants a redshirt, thinking about transferring.’ And he came to my office, I’m like, is this about your four games? And he was like, ‘Heck, no.’ And then he talked about that.

“So those are the meetings that I had, and it’s just another testament to how much it hurts me that we are where we are, because I want these guys to have so much success. I want the 80,000-plus people that are in Williams-Brice Stadium every single Saturday to see a win from the Gamecocks. And I want all the people, like I said at the beginning, from the lowcountry to the PD to the Midlands to the Upstate, to have success and be able to walk into their line of work on Monday morning or school, proud about what the Gamecocks did on Saturday. As the head coach, I’m not getting that done, and I know I’m letting them down. But what gives me great hope to get it turned where we want it, because we aren’t far off, we’re not, is players like that, and then everybody on our team. We’ve got a bunch of really good young men on our team that I wish everybody could see how we practice, because it matters. I wish they could see how we walk through because it matters. I wish they could see how we meet, because it matters. And now we’ve got to take all that great stuff we’re doing and do that great stuff on Saturdays. And that’s just what we haven’t been able to do consistently enough. That’s what’s frustrating.”

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