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

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media on Tuesday to preview the Gamecocks’ Week 5 matchup vs. Kentucky. Kickoff on Saturday is at 7:45 p.m. and will be on SEC Network.

Here’s everything Beamer had to say.

Opening statement

“Another SEC opportunity at home on Saturday night will be a big challenge. Have always had a lot of respect for Coach (Mark) Stoops, what he’s done at the University of Kentucky. Winning is hard, no question about it, and the level of success that he’s had since he took over in Lexington is just so impressive, a model of consistency year in, year out. They’re a team that has their systems, it doesn’t change, and you have to go beat them. They’ve got really good players. Last season did not go the way they wanted, record-wise, but you can see that they corrected whatever issues they had from last season. They’ve got a really impressive group right now, offense, defense, and special teams. Some players that are a year older in their program, impact transfers that they’ve brought in on all three phases. So we’ve got a big challenge. They had a week off, so they’re rested and have had two weeks to get ready for us.

“We’ve got to get a lot better ourselves, without a doubt. Got off to a great start, really, on Sunday when we came back. Love coaching this group. We know we have a lot of work to do, though, it’s not good enough. No one’s happy about being 2-2. There’s no question about that. But I know not every person in here is a person of faith, but John 16:33 says, ‘There are going to be trials and tribulations: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’ And the trials and tribulations that we’re going through right now are nothing compared to what that verse is about or what other people are going through, whether it be Shawn Clark’s family or the Owen family, or anyone else that’s dealing with trials and tribulations. But we’re certainly dealing with some trials right now, but we’re full of good cheer. There’s no question about it.

“Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean that we’re happy about the way that we performed the last two weeks. It doesn’t mean that we’re full of good cheer, because we got outrushed 295 to minus something the other night in Missouri. But it does mean that I’m extremely blessed and grateful to get to do what I get to do with who I get to do it with, these players and coaches, each and every day. Saturday night was a long night, and it was a long return trip back. We sat on the runway in Columbia, Missouri for way too long, waiting to take off, and I didn’t walk into my house in Columbia until after 5 a.m. on Sunday morning. Slept for a couple of hours and woke up and was right back in this building with excitement about getting back to work and excitement about seeing the players later that afternoon. Had a good day on Sunday, building on the positives from the other night, and there were.

“The way that we threw the ball, we’ve got to continue to build on that. The fact that we did not turn the ball over offensively, we’ve got to continue to build on that. The fact that we got stops in the red zone on defense, there’s some joy in that, and we’re going to continue to build on that. The way that William Joyce came in and kicked pressure field goals, we’re going to build on that. The missed opportunities that we had on special teams are disappointing, but we’re going to build on how close we were. The fact that we played like garbage in so many ways, but we were leading going into the fourth quarter, just imagine, if we can get all this other stuff fixed, which everything is fixable, how good this football team can be. So that’s what excites me, that we got to go back to work with a great group of people that worked their rear ends off, and this week has been no different. Love being around our players. Love being around our coaches.

“Doesn’t mean that we don’t have hard conversations, because part of being a leader, which I am as the leader of this program, is having really, really, really hard and uncomfortable conversations with players and coaches, whether it be in a team setting or individual meetings. And that happens all the time. This week is no different, but we get to do what we love, and that’s to go coach football and play football. We get to do it on Saturday night against a really quality opponent in the best environment in all of college football. And I get it. There are a lot of people outside this building that aren’t happy with me and aren’t happy with our 2-2 record, and I don’t blame them, but you get to come back into Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday night and be a part of the greatest environment in all of college football. So that’s what our focus is on, and looking forward to it, and hard at work on that. Great start today.

“Injury-wise, we’ll have a report for you tomorrow night. Nobody that we’d say right now is out. It was good to see Judge Collier back at practice today. Hopefully, he’ll continue to trend in the right direction and see where guys are tomorrow when we release that availability report.”

When it comes to the running game, is it a case of tweaks and things that you can make to make it better in a week, or does it require a drastic shake-up? Has that already happened to try to get this fixed before Kentucky?

“Yeah, I think it’s always happening. Clearly, when you perform like we did the other night, it’s not as simple as I just need to do this a little bit better. There are some serious issues when you rush for negative yards and you haven’t been able to run the ball consistently enough. So like I told our coaches, there’s a four-game body of work that says it’s not good enough, and now we have to fix it. And how do you do that? You continue to build on some of the things that we are doing well. It’s maybe tweaking personnel in some areas. It’s tweaking schemes in some areas, but it’s not a let’s go in here and blow things up. But one or two games, you can say, okay, it’s a work in progress, and it still is a work in progress, but four games, the body of work is nowhere near good enough, and we have to be better. And that’s certainly things you can do in one game, whether, like I said, personnel, scheme, tweaks, coach, something a little bit better you look at it at all, and that’s everywhere. That’s offense, defense and special teams.”

What is being done in practice to limit the penalties in games?

“You always look at it, and we talk about penalties after every game. When we come in here on Sundays, we have a team meeting right there next door where we show the penalty on tape. We talk about why it happened. We talked about how it can happen. We need to talk about how we coach it better, whether it be pre-snap or during the play. But clearly that message isn’t getting through the right way to this year’s team. It’s what we’ve done for the last few years since I’ve been here, but it’s not resonating like it needs to. So you can’t just continue to say, ‘I’m going to go in there and show penalties on video.’ We did, but then there are some things in practice that we’ve tweaked and adjusted on how we handle it when it happens in practice. We’ll see if it’s better on Saturday night, and if it is, I’ll tell you at the postgame what it was, and if not, forget we ever did it; we’ll figure out something different.”

You said everything is fixable, but what is one thing for Saturday that you want to see fixed more than anything you feel like could make the biggest difference in winning and losing?

“I mean, there’s plenty. We have our plan to win, like a lot of people have. For us, that’s run the ball, stop the run. Let’s win the turnover battle, win the explosive play battle, play smart football, which is penalties, and then dominate the fourth quarter. Dominate the fourth quarter, meaning you win the fourth quarter. Play smart football, meaning you have less penalties than the other team. Run the ball and stop the run. That’s yards per carry. Win the explosive play battle, that’s a run over 12 or a pass over 18, and then win the turnover battle, that speaks for itself. So every week you go back to game one against Eastern Illinois, back in 2021, if we do that, we just do, I think it’s six things that I just named. If we do half of those, we typically win every single game. And we didn’t do anything the other night other than win the turnover battle. And I told the team going into it, the last two trips that we’ve gone to Missouri, we haven’t won the plan to win enough of it, and we didn’t the other night. So to me, go back and do that, and if we can be a little bit better and do more than just winning the turnover battle, then we’re going to feel pretty good on Saturday night.”

You mentioned some of those younger safeties or backup safeties are challenging for more time. Are there any other spots on the team where some younger guys or guys who haven’t played as much are fighting for more reps?

“Yeah, I think constantly looking, again, we’re a third of the way through the season, and there’s a lot of football left. We’re not even into October yet. And what I’ve told the coaches and what I’ve told the players is there’s not a single position on our team where if a guy’s not getting it done, that we’re just going to keep them in there and just keep watching it not get done. I’m not saying that’s happening, but there’s some really, we do a lot of good on good in practice, and we’re evaluating the players that when we’re not doing good on good, and we’re doing more scout team stuff, it’s competitive. And we’re evaluating people all the time, whether it be offense, whether it be defense, whether it be special teams. So I think there are a lot of guys that continue to flash, whether it be from an offensive standpoint, a defensive standpoint, or a special teams standpoint.

“And I told the coaches that again, this is every year, it’s not just because we’re 2-2 right now, but we need to have our eyes wide open and see guys continue to flash in practice. If they can help us on the field, let’s get them on the field. And I think you’re seeing a little bit of that, starting with special teams. You saw it last week with Matthew Fuller. Nobody asked me about Matthew Fuller and why he was in the game carrying the ball. He’s a guy who continues to impress. Nobody asked me about why Mike Tyler was a starter on the kickoff return team; nobody cares about that? Nobody asked me why Donovan Darden was out there playing more on special teams. Those are all examples of guys that just continue to get better and flash, and we need to make sure more and more of that happens if guys earn those opportunities.”

Vicari Swain and Peyton Williams were in here earlier talking about the tackling. They emphasized that they all worked on it today, and they need to get to the ball and wrap up. Why isn’t that happening? Is it a focused thing? Do they just not get enough reps before the season? What is it there?

“I’d say we get more reps in tackling than most people do. I’d say we do more live tackling in practice than most teams do in the spring and the preseason. Most teams don’t do a ton of live tackling in season, but we have in the past, and certainly want to be able to continue to do so also. I think it’s a little bit of everything. I don’t think it’s an effort issue at all. I don’t think anybody could watch our game against Missouri the other night and question how hard our guys played. I mean, we were ready to play in how much our guys wanted it. I don’t think anybody can question that, but I think there were too many examples the other night of guys just assuming that somebody was on the ground and didn’t finish the play, like what they needed to play. It wasn’t because of a lack of want to or a lack of effort. Just got to get off blocks, and you can’t assume if somebody’s got it. We’ve got to do a better job of all 11, being around the ball. But it’s something that we emphasize all the time, and we’ve been a good tackling team here in my time, I feel like, and we haven’t done a good enough job of it the last couple of weeks. But particularly last week against Missouri, I mean, let’s give that guy a lot of credit, too. It wasn’t like all of a sudden he just showed up out of nowhere Saturday night against us. We knew what to expect going into it. This freaking running back they got coming in from Kentucky here this weekend, we’d better wrap his butt up. I mean, he and I were together at Oklahoma. He runs with violence, and we’d better get 11 hats to the ball on this guy, or it’s going to be another long night.”

When you have a week like this, where it seems like you’re spending a lot of time working and doing some things on your team, does that take away from the preparations for Kentucky?

“No, it’s always about us, always. Whether we’re in the middle of a six-game winning streak last year, or whether we’re in the middle of a three-game losing streak, or a four-game losing streak, or whatever it was the year before that. I mean it, really, in my mind, it always is about us fixing our issues, making sure we’re the best version of ourselves when we go into a game. Don’t get me wrong, healthy respect for the opponent. We spend a lot of time talking about the opponent, but what we do in practice is always about us, and that’s what matters. Every opponent is just the next person on our schedule. But we are a team that has always gotten better as the year has gone on, and that’s not changing, because we’ve got some issues that we’ve got to fix. We’ve always got things that we’ve got to correct from a game, win or lose. But it doesn’t take away from the preparation for the opponent, whether it be Vanderbilt, Missouri, or Kentucky, or whoever’s next.”

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On the teleconference on Sunday, you mentioned how much Missouri was spending on its linebacker. I’m curious at what point do you evaluate your player personnel department and how you guys allocate money to build a football team?

“Yeah, it’s something you’re evaluating every day. I’m the head coach. I’m in charge of all that. It’s not like somebody else is making a decision in regards to money and how it’s being allocated, and they’re just sending me an email letting me know what we’re doing. Everything that happens in this building, I’m responsible for, hiring good people and allowing them to do their jobs. But there’s not a major decision that’s made in this program that I’m not responsible for. I’m not trying to take anything away from any other program.

“I mean, (Josiah Trotter) is a heck of a player. We tried to recruit him out of high school. His brother returned an interception for a touchdown against us at Clemson a few years ago. We tried to get him when he was in the portal. He’s a heck of a player. But there were also some other linebackers that we were recruiting. Shawn Murphy and (Justin Okoronkwo), we knew we had Fred Johnson and Jaron Willis, and signed a good linebacker class as well. So you’re always looking at how you allocate the money available from a rev share standpoint. I’m ultimately responsible for all those decisions.”

Last year, it was very easy to see who the leaders were from outside the program. It’s harder to identify this year, at least for those outside of the program. Do you see the kind of player leadership within the team that can help you guys respond to the adversity that y’all are having?

“Yeah, I do. We got a lot of guys that care. It’s a different style, if you will. I mean, that was a special group last year, because you had some grown men. D Knight, Debo (Williams) Tonka (Hemingway), Boogie (Huntley), Vershon (Lee). I mean, there were a lot of guys like that. Kai Kroger had been around this program longer than I had been, Hunter Rogers. I mean, there was just a strong group. Josh Simon, on and on and on and on and on. And I can’t name them all. Torcelli (Simpkins), Kamaar (Bell). I mean, you think about it, there were a lot of older guys, and we’re really young right now. It just is. You look at the number of seniors that were starting and playing meaningful steps for us last year, compared to the number of seniors that are starting and playing meaningful steps for us this year, there’s a difference, and that’s okay. I mean, that’s college athletics, and that’s coaching, and it was certainly not like I’m oblivious to it.

“I knew as soon as the season ended that we were going to have to replace a lot of leadership from the ’24 team to the ’25 team, and we went to work at it hard in January, all through the offseason program, the summer to develop that leadership and build those guys up. It’s a different style, but we’ve still got a really solid group of guys that are passionate and care, that have been around here for a long time. Nick Barrett, DQ (Smith), Luke Doty, there are a lot of guys that are very invested in this program because of how long they’ve been here, or transfers that have come in that are really solid guys that are leaders on this team. Brady Hunt, you know, young guys, Fred Johnson, on and on. So yes, to answer your question, it’s still a work in progress, but those guys are very passionate about it. I meet with a group of them regularly each week, and they want to get this thing right, and know that being a leader means having uncomfortable conversations with people, and you’ve got to confront and you’ve got to demand, and seeing more and more signs of that.”

What’s your approach to coaching someone as dynamic as LaNorris Sellers after he has a game like he had to still be himself and make the Superman-type plays, but also not take 20-yard sacks and take you guys out of the red zone?

“Yeah, it’s like anybody, you coach it, you teach it. He did a lot of really good things for us last week, the throws that he made and managing the offense, not turning the ball over. There’s a lot of good to build on with LaNorris; there’s no question about that. We’ve got to be better around him, players and coaches, but you hold him accountable that this can’t happen. And he knows that. And on that play, the sack we took on the two-yard line, I think it came up on, I think Jack, or somebody asked it on the teleconference the other night, that there were some issues around him on that play, but at the same time, ultimately, he’s got to be smart and get rid of the ball, and he knows that.

“So to answer your question, it’s coaching hard, just like anybody, but also there’s a lot of really great things that he did that night that gave us a chance to win. If we complete that third-down ball on the next-to-last drive to Dre (Jacobs) and we catch that thing and go score, or we block the punt there in the game where we ran into him, we were about half a yard away from blocking it. The mood in here and the questions about the game are completely different, but that’s sports. It’s a fine line, and right now, we’re on the other side, way too often, of the line, the side of the line that we need to be on. But LaNorris, I told the team this morning, I mean, when he’s at his best, there’s not another quarterback in the country I’d rather have, and that hasn’t changed.”

One thing that was really clicking in the passing game was the play-action passing. When it comes to trying to formulate an identity early in the season and tapping into some of the things that you’re good at to keep growing that offensive success, how much does something like that in a game like you had on Saturday go into building that offensive identity?

“It was good. We knew we wanted to throw the ball downfield. That was our plan going into it. I mean, I’m probably going to feel this way every week, that with our receivers and our tight ends, we need to take shots downfield, because we’ve got guys that can make plays in the passing game. We got a quarterback that can get the ball down there, so we wanted to throw the ball downfield. The one to Dre that got us down there to the two-yard line was a 3rd and 2 play. If I’m not mistaken, we’re getting ready to go for it on fourth down. So Mike (Shula) knew we had two downs, so we maxed it up and ran a two-man shot play and hit Dre on the ball down to the two-yard line. So we’ve got to be able to do that.

“Now, if we can get this running game going, then really watch out, because now we’ve got a run game that people have to be respectful of, and the ability to throw the ball over your heads. That’s where we need to get to. But certainly, when you have a quarterback like LaNorris, we’ve got good offensive linemen, we’ve got good running backs, we’ve got a quarterback that can run, there’s a running threat. We’re just not executing well enough right now, obviously, but I do believe we’re close. You always hear like, run the ball to set up the pass. Maybe we’re throwing the ball to set up a run, who knows, but again, I’d love to line up every night and run the ball for 300 yards. That would be awesome, but it’s hard to run the ball in this league. And you say, ‘Well, hold on, Shane, Missouri just ran from 300,’ and you’re right, but it’s hard to run. But we can’t be stubborn and bang our heads against the wall. We want to run the ball efficiently, but we certainly don’t want to prove a point about how we can run the ball all of a sudden, be three yards on a cloud of dust, and not take advantage of these receivers and tight ends that we have on this team. They can do a lot of things in the passing game.”

What have the hard conversations been like the past week and a half? And how do you approach those as the leader of the team?

“I mean, you ultimately have a responsibility to this program and the players, the coaches, the university, my bosses, the community, the people that follow Gamecock football, to get this thing right. We all know what we signed up for as coaches and the players. I mean, you want to be somewhere where there are high expectations and you have great relationships. I love and care about every single person in this building on a personal level, and I want to see everyone be successful. But there’s also responsibility when things aren’t getting done, and when something’s not good enough, you have those conversations, but everybody gets that. We know what we signed up for, but also understand that there are people who are staff, players, like we’ve got what we need. We’re not doing it well enough right now as a whole. We haven’t gotten the best out of this team. We’re continuing to get better. We’re still a work in progress, but in my opinion, we haven’t gotten the best out of this team in the first four games, and that’s really disappointing, and ultimately my responsibility, so you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get that right and not have that feeling.”

Do you find yourself having to meet some of those leaders halfway based on their leadership style?

“I think we know who the leaders are on this team, like LaNorris Sellers was voted a permanent Captain by his teammates last year. LaNorris hardly ever says a word. We just came from a leadership meeting where we were talking about a lot of things, and I said, ‘Anything on your mind that you want to talk about LaNorris?’ And he just wanted to talk about what helmets we were wearing Saturday night, which I love, it’s an important topic of discussion, there’s no question about it. But he’s got his own leadership style, and guys respect him. I was with Jalen Hurts at Oklahoma, and Jalen hardly ever said a word. But because of how he worked, people followed him. I was with Kyler Murray at Oklahoma, same type thing. Kyler’s personality was different than Jalen’s, but he was a leader, and players respected him.

“So you don’t have to be the guy that’s always just rah, rah, rah all the time. But there’s Brandon Cisse for us, to me, he’s one of those new transfers that’s a leader on this team. He doesn’t say a lot, but just watch the guy, the way he handles his business. He’s a pros pro. So there are examples of that. I used an example this morning with the team and the team meeting about Travion (Robertson) and a conversation he and I had yesterday that conveyed leadership to me, and gave that as an example to our players. To answer your question, yes, there are times where knowing the impact that certain guys have on our team, you may pat them on the butt. Hey, go celebrate a little bit more, a year ago. They need to feel your energy in this moment, but at the same time, I don’t want guys to be somebody that they’re not either. So it’s gotta be genuine. But really, I think it’s just conveying to them the impact that this team, that they could have on this team, and realizing, you know, that their words matter, whether it be LaNorris, Brandon, or Tro (Baugh) or anybody on this team.”

Looking ahead to the Kentucky game, what’s been the focus for Sellers?

“Just continuing to get better. He did a lot of really good things in Missouri on Saturday night, and certainly, like all of us, some plays he’d like to have back, but we’ve got to, like I said, continue to be better around him, and he’s got to continue to protect the ball. He’s doing a great job of that. We ran him some the other night. We need to be able to continue to do that. But I think the biggest thing is just continuing to lead the offense and keep getting us better and everyone around him, coaches and players, doing our part to help him also.”

What are the big takeaways you have about the offensive play-calling from Saturday? What would you kind of say to the fans who feel like the offensive play-calling is one of the bigger issues for this team right now?

“Look, when you don’t win the game, the play calling is not good enough and the coaching is not good enough, because ultimately, that’s what we’re judged on. When you look around the country, when you lose a football game, the guy that gets the blame is the head coach, the offensive coordinator, and then the quarterback, usually, and that’s just the way it is — NFL, college, high school. That’s just what you sign up for. The plan that we’re putting together, I’m in all the offensive and defensive meetings during the week, special teams meetings. I know what the game plan is. I know why plays are in the game plan. I know why we’re calling it, just like there are decisions every game that I look back and maybe wish that I had done differently, or plays that players would like to have back. There are plays that I’m sure Mike would like to have back. I don’t know which play calls you’re referring to…

Just in general, how you felt about how Saturday went from a play-calling standpoint…

“I thought it was fine. I mean, I’m sure there are plays that Mike would like to have back. I mean, yeah, when you’re on the two-yard line and we take a 20-yard sack, hindsight being 20-20 says, ‘Ah, you should have run the ball there.’ But I’m on the headphones, and if I didn’t like the opportunity, we’re going to run the ball. We were going to have four plays to score right here. We just hit a big play down there to the two-yard line. You gotta play action, then we can come back and run it three times if we want to. So every play call that’s made, I hear it. If I have an issue with something, I will certainly address it. But ultimately, when you don’t win the game, it’s not good enough. Anything, offense, defense and special teams.”

When you look at Sellers only scrambling two times on Saturday, how much of that is what defenses are doing, and how much of that is just him wanting to try and make a play with his arm?

“Probably a little bit of both. You want to coach him up on the different looks that you’re going to get, and you know where to go with the ball. But teams aren’t dumb either. I mean, they’re going to watch tape. And if you watch Missouri, there are a lot of times that they were dropping eight people into coverage. And they had two people whose only job was to keep their eyes on LaNorris Sellers. So they’re rushing three guys. They have two guys who are spying, if you will. And then there were six guys who are in coverage. It’s tough. And now, as coaches, we’ve got to have schemes for him to be able to do that. The 3rd and 16 against Clemson, yeah, they had a spy on him, and we know what happened. So I don’t sit there and say, ‘Oh my god, they got a spot on LaNorris. Don’t run.’ We’re not saying that, but there’s a time and place, and we’ve got to be able, like I said, to throw the ball downfield. We’ve got to be able to check the ball down to the running back if they are going to.

“Like I said, teams aren’t dumb. They’re going to keep an eye on LaNorris. They want to keep him in the pocket. They’re going to play soft covers, typically on Nyck Harbor, because they don’t want to get run past. And we showed the ability to run past DBs the other night with some of our receivers. So teams are going to try to keep us and keep everything in front of them, keep a spy on the doors. Until we show that we can run the ball, that’s probably what we’re going to continue to see defensively. So we’ve got to have plans to combat that. We’ve got to be able to run the ball better. But again, I’ve never told the LaNorris, ‘Hey, man, make sure we run more tonight, or run less tonight.’ It’s what the defense has given you and what the game plan is each week.

“And again, Kentucky does a really good job. Coach Stoops is a defensive coach. Brad (White), their defensive coordinator, is phenomenal and does a really good job and makes it really, really hard on teams. That game last year was 10-6 midway through the third quarter. People forget that. I mean, that’s always a slug fest, and going back looking at this game, take COVID out of it, but from 2016 on, the winning team has never scored more than 24 offensive points. We scored 31 last year, but the offense scored 24 because Nick (Emmanwori) had the interception. So, in 2016, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, no one has scored more than 24 points in this game. So I hope we score more than 24 on Saturday night. That would be awesome, but it’s going to be a slug fest, and we’ve got to be really physical and ready to go compete against a really good Kentucky team Saturday night.”

Did you or the program have any strong opinions on what the three permanent opponents should be? Was there input with the SEC? How did all of that work from your guys’ perspective?

“No, we did not. But what is it? Kentucky, Florida, Georgia? Is that right? About two years ago, three years ago, when there was the talk of potentially having three permanent opponents that you were going to play each year, they told us who that would be. That was two or three years ago, and two or three years ago, it was Florida, Kentucky and Georgia. So that aspect of it didn’t change. I didn’t have a conversation about it when we had league meetings in Destin back in May. We didn’t discuss that when we had head coach meetings with the ADs in New Orleans back in February. We didn’t discuss who they were, Jeremiah (Donati) and our administration, maybe did. I know they had an athletic directors meeting one or two weeks ago in person. That was maybe something they discussed. But nobody asked me for my opinion. They didn’t ask me my opinion on eight games or nine games either. So I just coach the team or try to, and whenever they tell us to play, we’ll be there.”

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