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

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media on Tuesday to preview the Gamecocks’ Week 4 matchup at Missouri. Kickoff on Saturday is at 7 p.m. and will be on ESPN.

Here’s everything Beamer had to say.

Opening statement

“Excited to get back on the field for practice Sunday, but then certainly today. New week, got a big challenge going out to Missouri. Coach (Eliah) Drinkwitz has done an amazing job in his time at Missouri, especially here the last few years. The level of success they’ve had, what they’ve been able to do and accomplish, is really impressive. Got a lot of respect for the way they do things. They have their system, and year after year, they replace players, but the system doesn’t change, and they continue to operate efficiently and at a high level, and this year is no different. You look at all the great players they lost off last year’s team, and they look even better here in 2025 so far.

“The new quarterback that’s come in from Penn State, you see why they were so excited about him. The running back that’s coming in from Louisiana-Monroe is a super talented back to go along with other talented running backs in that room. The wide receiver core, obviously, they brought back a lot and added a transfer from Mississippi State, portal additions on the offensive line. They’re operating at a really, really high level offensively right now, and really make it a challenge for teams to defend. Special teams-wise, they always do a great job and present challenges. This year is no different.

“And then defensively, certainly, they’ve always been disruptive, and this year is no different with how disruptive they are. They’ve got guys that can rush the passer. They’ve added pieces from the portal in (Damon) Wilson, the defensive end from Georgia, and (Josiah) Trotter, the linebacker from West Virginia. Some portal additions in the secondary to go along with the talented group they had coming back. So it’s a veteran group on defense, a ton of juniors and seniors, an offense that’s operating at a high level, and then really dangerous special teams.

“So we’ve got a big challenge this week, but that’s life in the SEC. Last week was that way. This week is this way. Next week will be that way. But as a competitor, we love that. We’ve got a lot of competitors in our program that are eager to get back on the field and go compete again this weekend.”

Any update on LaNorris Sellers or any other injuries?

“Nope. We have an injury report for an SEC game that we release on Wednesday nights.”

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Did you get any answers from the SEC about the roughing the passer penalties and why the replay on Sellers and the targeting call took so long?

“Yeah, I had a couple of conversations. Yes, to answer your question, we got a response from them, and then they actually reached out to me. They initiated a conversation yesterday morning, which I appreciate John McDaid, the head of officials, doing. I don’t know how much I can say about all of them. I think they felt like the two roughing the passers were legitimate calls and warranted, and I understand where they’re coming from. I think it’s tough to teach Bryan (Thomas) what to do in mid-air. When he was leaping, he had left his feet by the time the quarterback left his feet. Outside of twisting his body mid-air, I’m not really sure what to tell him, but his body weight landed on the quarterback, and we know that if your body weight lands on him, you’re putting it in the official’s hands. And that’s why that was called. They felt like Dylan (Stewart)’s was a good call. And then, as far as how long it took to initiate the replay, we had a good conversation about that. And I think operationally, they feel like that’s an area to improve.”

With some of the offensive struggles you’ve had through the first three weeks, how much of it is kind of getting back to the drawing board, trying to find something schematically, and how much of it is kind of just coaching execution on some little things?

“I mean, I think every week, it’s getting back to the drawing board. Every week, you have a different opponent that plays a different scheme, and every week, you’re trying to put together a plan to attack the scheme that the opponent plays defensively. Virginia Tech, South Carolina State, Vanderbilt, and now Missouri. They’re all different in structure and how they do things. So each week, you go back to the drawing board to put together a plan. But nobody’s sitting in there just pulling crap out of mid air and just putting together a new offense. We’re doing a lot of good stuff. We’ve just got to do it more consistently than what we’re doing.”

Do you need Sellers to practice a certain amount of time to feel comfortable putting him in on Saturday?

“Yeah, we have a pretty consistent policy that if you don’t practice Tuesday or Wednesday, you’re not going to play. I don’t care who you are, if you don’t get out there and practice on Tuesday and Wednesdays especially, it’s really tough to just practice on Thursday. Practice on Thursday is important here, but it’s a little bit of a shorter day, and the bulk of your game plan is on Tuesday and Wednesday. So whether you’re an offensive player, defensive player, special teams player, we need to be able to see you do something on Tuesday and Wednesday.”

How do you, as a head coach, deal with things not going well? Are you someone who has to see the changes right away, or do you just kind of let you know patience take over at certain times?

“I mean, we only get 12 of these guaranteed, so there’s not a lot of patience that you have when things aren’t going well to just say, well, you know, hopefully by November, we kick into gear. I wish we could. We can’t do that at this thing. We don’t play 30-plus games like Dawn (Staley) and Lamont (Paris) or 50 or 40, whatever it is, with Coach (Paul) Mainieri and Ashley (Chastain Woodard) with baseball and softball, we get 12. And there’s a sense of urgency, and there has been since day one. I think for me, it’s every game taking a step back, win or lose, and looking at the things that you did well, looking at the things you didn’t do well, and figuring out how you’re going to improve. Enhance the things we’re doing well, fix the things that we’re not doing well, but understand that there’s a sense of urgency to get that done pretty quickly.”

What are your thoughts on Missouri’s top running back, Ahmad Hardy?

“He’s a stud. All those backs are. All three of them are impressive. I mean, we have every Monday, I’m a glutton for punishment. So on Mondays, one of the things I do is watch the opposing offenses’ big plays in the run game and pass game, and then I watch the opposing defenses sacks and TFLs and interceptions and fumbles just to get all the bad out of the way as quickly as possible. And I feel like the explosive run cut up that I watched from Missouri’s last three games is like the longest explosive run cut up I’ve watched in five years. It felt like it’s just long run after long run after long run. It starts with the scheme they run. Their M-O is running the outside zone, stretch play, wide zone, whatever one you want to call it. It’s all the same where they hand that ball off, and those offensive linemen get running.

“And defensively, if you get reached or you get out of a gap or you don’t get off a block on the perimeter, it’s a 70-yard touchdown run, which is what happened against Kansas to win the game. And so they have their system, they have their scheme, and they do it really well. And then when you add that back to it with all of them, but the one from Louisiana-Monroe, he’s just a load. He’s hard to tackle. He’s got great contact balance, he’s got really good speed, he’s got really good vision. We got to do a great job tackling, and it takes all 11. I mean, there’s a touchdown run against Kansas where Kansas brings the corner and he’s unblocked, and he just misses the tackle in the backfield, and it turns into a touchdown. He’s going to get his yards on Saturday. We’ve got to do a great job of getting 11 hats around the ball and corralling him, or we don’t allow that to just turn into explosives. And however many yards rushing they had against Louisiana, it was an ungodly amount from a defensive standpoint.”

Missouri’s third-down conversion rates have typically been really high so far this season. Is it a lot of the same talking points you have this week as you guys had last week with Vanderbilt and trying to get off the field?

“Yeah, certainly. I mean, when you’re playing against Vanderbilt, or you’re playing against any team and you allow them to go, I think they were, you know, they were really good on third down the other night, and they were really good on fourth down. And you got to be great on first and second down to stay out of those situations.”

How do you feel like Sellers has done in the pocket this year? And is there any part of you that feels like for the offense to have more success, it comes down to maybe trying to have him running the football a little more?

“As far as the pocket, I think he’s done well. I think the South Carolina State game, I think I mentioned it last week, where there’s a third down and we throw to Mike Smith, and he does a great job stepping up in the pocket and making throws. The protection was good the other night. Again, we had two sacks, and one of those was because another position missed an assignment. The other one was because we had a bad snap that LaNorris had to fall on. Other than that, the protection was good and the pockets were good.

“I don’t know what conspiracy theories are out there, but I’ve never said, and no one in this building has ever said, ‘We need to run the quarterback less.’ Like I hear all this crap about they’re not running the quarterback enough or something. We’re calling the same gosh dang plays we called last year, guys. And we’re not saying we need to run LaNorris less. I know there’s like this conspiracy theory going back to the bowl game that we said don’t run LaNorris as much. We’re running LaNorris plenty. And some of those are reads where LaNorris can hand it or pull it and keep it. Some of those are RPOs, where he can run it or throw it, and there’s some of those are called design runs that he runs.

“I would say every week we want to do what we need to do to win the football game. We ran him the other night. We ran him against Virginia Tech. We ran him against South Carolina State. Teams aren’t dumb either. In our mind, last week, we wanted to get the ball out of the Vanderbilt quarterback’s hands on some of those zone reads. And these teams we play, they have good coaches, and a lot of them are going to say, ‘Don’t let 16 carry the ball,’ because we’ve seen what happens when he carries the ball too. So we’re we’re doing what we got to do to win football games each week, and if that means running LaNorris, we’re going to run LaNorris or Luke (Doty) or Air (Noland) or Cutter (Woods) or Jimmy Francis or Brandon Cunningham or whoever we got in there playing quarterback.”

After the loss to Ole Miss last year, you said it was extra frustrating, because you had a really great week of practice. You said similar things. Are you noticing any lack of leadership on the field, execution, focus? Going forward, how are you going to kind of approach games if they go poorly when the week of practice and preparation went well?

“I think that’s just sports in general. You played basketball, right? And I’m sure there were games or practices that you had when you were playing basketball in high school where you had a really good week of practice and it didn’t go like you thought in a game. That’s sports and that’s competition. It is frustrating, though, when you feel really good going into a game, and I did last week, we had a great week of practice, there was no doubt in my mind we were we were ready to play from a emotional standpoint, and excited to be out there. I mean, it was our best week of practice, and then we went out there on Saturday and perform poorly — coaches and players.

“So certainly, when that happens, you look back and there are things you missed. Are there things that we need to be doing differently better? I think you’re always tweaking throughout the season. This week is this week’s no different, but at the same time, it’s continue to stay the course and continue to do the things that we did well last week, and then when we get out there on Saturday nights, we have to execute better than what we did. That’s really what it comes down to, coaches and players. We just have to be better, because there was way too much good throughout the week last week for us to perform like we did in all three phases. There’s plenty of plays when you watch that tape on Sunday, offensively, defensively and special teams, where give the opponent credit, but if we just perform a little better, we’re probably feeling a little bit different on Sunday morning.”

What type of things do you do to help the team create energy when you’re going on the road this week?

“I think if you’re a competitor, you embrace going on the road. We’ve got a young team. We’ve basically played three home games to this point. So we’ve got a lot of young players on our team. They’re going to be going into an environment on Saturday night that they’ve never been a part of in their life. When Donovan Murph and Irmo went and played at Dutch fork, that was a hostile environment, there’s no question about it, but it’s not going to be what he’s going to face on Saturday night. So the things that we got to fall back on are our fundamentals, our technique, our competitive spirit, that as a competitor, you love going on the road and going into other teams stadium and going in the arena and getting ready and getting the opportunity to compete in on the field, and that’s what it gets down to. It’s up to us. We know it’ll be rocking on Saturday night. We’re not going to have to do anything to motivate them, because it’ll be plenty of energy and electricity in that stadium on Saturday night. I think they’ve got a blackout going on and all that. That’s awesome. You embrace that. That’s why you love being in the SEC because I’ve been in other conferences where you go on the road and there’s 20,000 people in the stands, and it stinks. That ain’t gonna be the feeling on Saturday night. And if you’re the made of the right stuff and our competitor, you love that. You embrace that.”

Say Sellers can’t go, is Luke Doty penciled in as the backup quarterback on Saturday?

“Yes.”

Okay, so with that process, Air Noland can’t have a good week of practice and…

“No, we compete, and I just told our team at the end of practice today, like, whoever started against Virginia Tech, there were some different people that started against South Carolina State. Whoever started against South Carolina State, there were some different people that started against Vanderbilt. Whoever started against Vanderbilt, there’s going to be some different people maybe that start against Missouri. Practices matter around here. How you perform in games matter around here. We don’t just here’s the starting lineup for game one, and it’s the same thing for the next 12 games or 11 games after that. Practice matters.

“So yeah, quarterback position, LaNorris, when he’s the starter, he’s got to continue to compete and continue to be the starting quarterback. So competition is a core value of this program, and that comes down to practice. And yes, if the game was today and LaNorris was not able to play, then yes, Luke would be the starter. But just like every position, we’ve got to continue to compete and quarterback positions no different. And those guys are doing some really good things. Air, Cutter, I mean, they’re really getting better, along with all these guys on our team.”

It seems like it’s been tough to get Mazeo Bennett the ball through these first three games. One, why is that? Two, is that a point of emphasis going forward?

“I think the point of emphasis is to we got a lot of playmakers on offense, and we knew going into the season that we had more playmakers, if you will, at the tight end position, the running back position and the receiver position than we’ve had here in my time as the head coach. I feel like we have more depth at all those positions, and more people that want the ball. And I’ve told our guys all along, I should I use Mazeo as an example back in August, that there may be a game where Mazeo catches 10 balls, and there may be a game where Mazeo doesn’t catch any. There may be a game where Nyck Harbor catches five, and maybe the next game he catches 15 or Jordan Dingle or Brady Hunt. Again, practice matters. We’ve got a lot of playmakers that we want to get the ball. Mazeo is one of our best players. He’s in a wide receiver room with a lot of competition in that room. We didn’t play a lot of plays the other night. We got to get off the field defensively on third down. We got to stay on the field offensively on third down, and defense get off on third down. And then when you do that and you’re able to sustain drives that presents more opportunities for everyone.”

Last week, Vandy liked to slow things down offensively. This week, it seems like Missouri tries to speed things up in the way it plays. How are you getting those guys ready for that difference in how those two offenses play?

“Yeah, they mix it up. Missouri wants to control the ball. I mean, if you look at their time of possession, they may be going fast at times, but they control the ball and they stay on the field on third downs, and they get their butts off the field on defense on third down. But they’re not, I wouldn’t say they’re not necessarily Ole Miss with fast tempo every single play, but they do mix it in there, and you’ve got to be ready where they hit a big play. All of a sudden they’re going fast, and they’re putting formation into the boundary, and they’re throwing shots over your head. We’ve got to do a great job of being able to get lined up and prepare for that. So it’s a little bit different than the style of Vandy, but it’s still run the football, control the clock, be physical and then be able to throw the ball down the field, which they’ve been able to do.”

What’s impressed you the most about Nyck Harbor in the last three games specifically?

“Probably just how he’s contributed in all areas. If you look at the offense, his ability to not just catch passes, but to block downfield. When you look at the play the other night with Jordan on the first play the game, you see Nyck downfield, he’s blocking. He’s obviously doing really good things in the intermediate passing game and the downfield passing game, like you saw against Virginia Tech. But then you watch on special teams. I mean, they kicked off the other night, he brought the ball from like nine and three quarters yards deep, and we’re a block that we didn’t quite finish away from that being a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. And then you watch him cover punts out wide as a gunner. He’s doing a lot of really good things right now at a high level.”

Is there any update on Travian Robertson and his status for this week?

“He’s making progress. He was actually, wasn’t in the building last Thursday, but he was over here in the parking lot after practice ended. Players got to see him, coaches got to see him. So he was here last Thursday. His wife drove him over, and he wanted to see everybody after practice. Everybody went outside and saw him. We’re in communication with him and talking regularly, and he’s getting better every day. Thanks for asking.”

Defensively, there seemed to be a few missed tackle opportunities that kept Vanderbilt behind the chains or prevent first down conversions. Is that even more of an emphasis this week with some of that explosive run game you’re talking about?

“Yeah, if you miss tackles against these guys, it’s going to be a long night. And we’ve been a good tackling team. We weren’t the other night. Our players know that they’ve got to get 11 hats to the ball. It’s hard to bring these running backs down with just one guy. It takes all 11 flying to the ball and that’s going to be a critical part of it because we haven’t, you know, our trips to Missouri, we haven’t done a great job of stopping the run, whether it be in 2021 or 2023, we didn’t do a lot well on those trips. But it starts with stopping the run against these guys, and we haven’t done a good enough job of that.”

Rahsul Faison had 15 carries on Saturday, Oscar Adaway had one. Was that something that you saw in practice, or just how he was running throughout the game?

“A little bit of both. We knew we needed to get ‘Sul going. And Oscars, you know, they’re a great kind of one-two punch right there. Knew we wanted to get ‘Sul going. Oscar had been a little banged up in practice last week. He was fine, but had a little bit of an upper body injury that limited him. He still practiced both days, but limited him a little bit from being 100 percent and ‘Sul had a good week. And then when we got into the game, ‘Sul was certainly running the ball really, really well. And again, goes back to we didn’t play a ton of plays on offense, and that’s kind of how it worked out because of it.”

You’ve talked a lot about how practice matters, but for you, what is your definition of that? What do you look for in practice that makes you feel like, ‘Okay, these guys are doing what I expect’?

“Great question. Executing the call, offense, defense, special teams, whatever play we have called. We put a lot of time as coaches into planning practice and what we want to get done, the plays we want to run the defenses we want to call, the kickoff returns and punt blocks we work on. So it’s very detailed how we do things. So I want to see people execute what we’re asking them to do. I want to see the strain and the finish and just the technique and the mentality that you want to play with, whether it be pad level, feet, footwork, hand placement, all the fundamental details. And then just the energy and the physicality that you want to play with. I mean, I’m a believer, like you don’t practice soft, and then think you’re going to go play physical on Saturday night. You need to see that. And we get after it in practice. We do. I want our practices to be harder than the games in a lot of ways with how we do things. And I feel like we create that environment. I just want to see us each day like I said, execute what we’re asking our guys to do, but then doing it with the right mentality that carries over into Saturday when you play.”

Jared Brown is another receiver that’s kind of gotten less catches than maybe some people are expecting. Does that have anything to do with him maybe still being a little banged up?

“No, I think he’s healthy. I think all of our guys are. And again, we signed seven receivers last year, and they’re all pretty good players to go along with the ones that we brought back. Last year was last year. Every week’s a new week, and we’re competing. I just told our players after practice, the people that are going to be out there on Saturdays are the ones that give us the best chance to win. If you’re from South Carolina or from North Carolina, scholarship, walk-on, senior, freshman, transfer portal, fresh out of high school, the guys that give us the best chance to be out there are the ones are going to be out there. And we got a lot of confidence and high expectations for JB, for Mazeo, for all those receivers. And there’s only one ball to go around. We want to make sure that we’re doing everything each week to maximize all of our playmakers and get as many touches for those guys as we can. But Jared certainly had a huge play in that game last year on the screen before the touchdown or before the half, and Mazeo had a critical catch over on the sideline for a third-down conversion in that game, I believe. So those guys were impact guys for us. They’re leaders on our offense, and we need to continue to keep them going.”

What’s sort of the line for Mason Love to step in at anytime and kick field goals?

“I think each week is different. They both kick in pregame, and then when we come off the field after pregame warmups, we always meet as a coaching staff in the locker room, and we talk about a lot right before we go back out for the game. And one of the things we discuss is our kickers line and where Joe D feels comfortable with, so Mike Shula knows where we’re trying to get to for a field goal in a two-minute situation like the other night. I think each game is different. We got plenty of confidence in (William) Joyce. I mean, William can go out there and bang 50-plus yarders also. So it’s kind of a work in progress. And I think each game is different conditions, the field, how they’re feeling, all that.”

When you’re watching film, how do you determine whether you need to change how the plays are being called versus it’s just the execution not going well?

“You always look at everything, and you can watch the tape, you know, you see, okay, we’re not executing this. I know what’s being called. I’m in every offensive meeting and defensive meeting as much as I can during the week. I know what the game plan is. I meet with Clayton (White) and Mike on Monday nights, Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights, to make sure all three of us are on the same page about what our plan of attack is and what we’re calling, and same thing on special teams. So want to know what we’re trying to get done, and then if it’s not getting executed at the level we wanted to get executed at, then you got to look at yourself, myself included, as how you’re presenting it, how you’re teaching it, how you’re coaching it. Is there a way to to be better? That’s the lay of the land, you know?

“And when it’s not good, you get criticism. I mean, last year, after Old Dominion, people were ready to fire the offensive coordinator. I got phone calls and text messages about it. When we scored three points against Ole Miss, people were ready to fire the offensive coordinator. The year before, when we gave up 40 some points and blew a fourth-quarter lead to Florida, people were ready to run Clayton White out of town. Last year, when we went to Oklahoma, people were disgruntled with the offense. It was kind of masked by scoring three touchdowns on defense, but we didn’t play great on offense. The day we went to Clemson, and we scored 17 points, or whatever.

“My point being like, every week, that’s just what you sign up for. When you don’t play well, you don’t perform well, head coach gets the blame, and then the offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator get the blame. And as the head coach, it’s my job to take a step back and make sure we’re coaching it the right way, calling the right things. That’s in all three phases, doing what our players can do, and then making sure that we’re teaching it the right way, also, which I feel like we are. And none of us were good enough the other night. None of us have been good enough. We’re 2-1, we didn’t expect to be here at 2-1. But this is a new week. As a competitor, that’s life. Things didn’t go the way we wanted it to on Saturday night. But you pick your butt up and you get right back to work and go compete. And we can sit around and feel sorry for ourselves and get our butts kicked again Saturday night, or you can pick yourself off the mat and go get ready to compete in the arena again, which is what we’re trying to do Saturday in Columbia.”

Have you had to have any other specific sit downs with Shula or White or whoever, about, hey, maybe we need to tweak this or do this to get better at what we need to do better?

“I think I’m doing that all the time. After wins, we’re doing that. And after Virginia Tech, I mean that like every game, we come in on Sundays, and I meet with the offensive staff, the defensive staff, and then special teams, and we talk about what we did well, what we didn’t do well, what maybe we weren’t prepared for that the opponent did something that we did from a personnel standpoint, there was a bad matchup. What we would do differently when we play this team next year, while it’s all fresh in our minds. We do that after every every game, and so I don’t feel like this week has been different. I’m not going to sit here and bury my head in the sand and pretend like Saturday night was good enough. We got our butts kick, and that starts with me. So I look at what I can do better and differently, and then talking to the leaders on this team about that. That’s every week the meetings I have. So to me, it’s staying consistent with the process that we have each and every week and and continuing to try and try and get better players and coaches.”

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