Everything Shane Beamer said previewing South Carolina's matchup with Texas A&M

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media on Tuesday to preview the Gamecocks’ upcoming matchup with Texas A&M. Kickoff on Saturday is at noon on ESPN.

Here’s everything Beamer had to say.

Opening statement

“Bye week was good. Hope it was good for everyone. We had a really good three days of work as a program on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then, players needed a break, so they got it starting Wednesday after practice, outside of academic responsibilities, and then I was able to do some recruiting. I love having two bye weeks because it means I can go out recruiting double what I’ll be able to do, I guess next year, when we only have one off week, the way the schedule falls in 2026. But it was great to be able to get out on Friday, along with some of our other coaches. Been a really productive fall in regards to being able to go out recruiting. We only have a certain number of days that the NCAA allows us, and we used really every single one but one, and that will get used next week when we’ve got a coach that’ll be out. So it’s really been a productive fall of being on the road. Gotten to see a lot of great players. Recruiting is going fantastic. A lot of excitement out there with the group of guys that’s committed, and then the ones below them in the class of ’27 that we’re recruiting, so really like where we are.

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“And then everyone came back in here on Sunday after the coaches went out recruiting, and everybody was off on Saturday, and got back in here on Sunday, I believe, reenergized, excited, and ready to roll for this big three-game stretch we have coming up. Goes without saying, we’ve got a huge challenge this week in College Station, a team that, in my opinion, is playing better than any team in the nation right now in all three phases. Offense, defense, or special teams isn’t bad. They’re good at everything and very efficient in everything. You look at an offense that doesn’t turn the ball over, they don’t have negative plays, they don’t give up sacks. You look at a defense that’s number one in the nation, I believe, right now, in third-down defense, number two in sacks. You look at a special teams unit that has returned two punts for touchdowns this year, dangerous in the kickoff return game, faked the punt that changed the game the other day against Missouri. So they’re clicking on all cylinders. Coach (Mike) Elko has done an awesome job out there. We know we’ve got a big challenge, but our guys are excited to go compete in one of the greatest venues in all of college football. This is one of, not my favorite, places in the league to go play. It’s just an awesome stadium. What college football is about, the tradition out there, the pageantry, the environment, the atmosphere, it’s awesome. Really feel fortunate to be able to go compete in arenas like the one I’m going to get to go compete in this week, and I know our players are excited about the opportunity to get back out on the field and get better.”

Over the past couple of weeks, how much from the offensive playbook has been added or modified?

“I’d say there’s been a pretty good tweaking. There have been some takeout, but then there’s also been some add, you know? So when you look at it, I’d say we probably have about the same number, or we will end up, we’ll get ready to game plan third down and red zone here this afternoon, tomorrow. But when it’s all said and done, we’ll end up with about the same amount of plays. Certainly, you can’t have radical changes, but there’s some things that Mike (Furrey) and Shawn (Elliott) and (Marquel Blackwell) and the rest of the staff maybe that they want to emphasize or things that we were doing before that. Again, they were part of the offensive staff when Mike Shula was the offensive coordinator, but they weren’t like they just went in their offices and Mike put together the plan and said, ‘Here it is.’ They were all in there, and they’re all accountable for it.

“But certainly, there’s different voices in there now that are leading the way. And there may be some things that they feel a little bit stronger about, and maybe Mike did. So yeah, a little bit less of some stuff, maybe a little bit more of things, but ultimately, doing what gives us the best chance to be successful, that fits our players, which is what we’re trying to do each and every week. But it’s been good. It’s been good that we had a bye week last week. Mike and the offensive staff, they really spent a lot of time the Sunday after the Ole Miss game, and then the Monday after the Ole Miss game, grinding through, kind of putting together an initial plan, and then Tuesday and Wednesday with meetings in practice, and then Thursday before guys went out on the road recruiting, and then back in here on Sunday. So it’s been good. Eager to watch them play on Saturday.”

When you met with the players after Mike Shula was fired, how did they kind of take everything in that moment? Since then, with Mike Furrey taking over as the playcaller, how do you feel like the mindset is for those guys on offense of trying to go out here and play really well for him over the next three weeks?

“In regards to how they took it, it was the Sunday after Ole Miss, and we didn’t do anything as a team that day. So I met with LaNorris. He was in the building, so I met with him right when it happened, essentially just to kind of talk to LaNorris about it face-to-face. I didn’t want to call a team meeting on Sunday and bring everybody in to announce that to them. So it was a little bit different because they all found out on Sunday via social media or whatever else. But met with LaNorris in person because he was in the building, and then I talked to all the quarterbacks on the phone that day directly, and they were certainly disappointed. I mean, that’s the guy, their position coach, and you grow close with that guy. It’s tough when there’s a change made. So I wanted to talk with the quarterbacks first and foremost. I thought they handled it well, like the great young men that they are. Disappointed for Coach Shula. We all have a hand in it, and we all let him down, myself, players, coaches, and there’s a sense of that, certainly. And then on Monday morning, after the Ole Miss game, we met as a team. I thought they handled it well. I explained to them why I made the decision that I made, that we all had a hand in it, that players and coaches are accountable for what’s on the field. Players are accountable. There were plays to be made in that Ole Miss game that were good plays, but we didn’t make them, and we’re all accountable for that. But this was what I felt gave us the best chance to be successful going forward. I just tried to be open and honest with them, and I feel like they’ve handled it the right way.

“And in regards to the second part of it, it’s been good. Mike’s got a, Furrey, I mean, he’s got an energetic personality. He’s talking trash to the defensive backs during stretch every day about what the receivers are going to do to them in practice. I mean, he’s kind of got that swag or whatever you want to call it, and he’s brought that to the offense. And I’m not saying that we didn’t have it before, but he’s definitely brought confidence. He’s connected well with LaNorris, and I think the offense is certainly, you know, but they know we need to be better. This will hopefully give us a little bit of a spark with that. So with Mike and the rest of the offensive coaches, I feel like they’ve done a nice job, and the players have handled it the right way and responded the right way. Now we’ve got to go play well on Saturday, which is easier said than done, against this crew.”

What goes into the decision on what to take out of the playbook, and how has LaNorris Sellers responded both in the way he’s practicing and in the meeting rooms? Is he more vocal about what he likes, what he doesn’t like?

“Yeah, what goes into it is kind of just looking at it, and I think it’s okay, you’ve got a nine-game body of work, and just like we do every week, looking at things we’re doing well, maybe things we’re not doing well, schematically. I think you look at the mechanics of how we’re doing things, how we’re calling stuff, how we’re communicating on the field with all 11 guys to one another. You look at everything, how can we be more efficient? You look at, okay, what are we not doing well, and why is it a personnel issue? Is it a schematic issue? What are we doing? Well, there’s a lot that goes into it and and then it’s also the opponent. Okay, here’s what Texas A&M does, and here’s how we need to attack those guys, which is a little bit different than the way that Ole Miss played. So we try and do that each and every week, but now it’s a really with a bye week, you have more time to dive into self-scout yourself, and then also get into the opponent.

“So that’s what we tried to do, but it’s also what LaNorris is comfortable with, and we do that every week. I mean, I’m talking to LaNorris regularly, just like all of our, you know, Mike Shula and the rest of our offensive coaches have done and will continue to about what makes him comfortable, what he likes. And I think you do that with any quarterback, and that’s certainly what we’ve done in this instance. There’s no question about it. I feel like LaNorris has handled it well. He is who he is. He doesn’t really change. But I’ll say this. I like the way that last Tuesday, last Wednesday, Sunday night, and today, you know, I like the way he’s practiced and the way that he’s throwing it and operating out there. So we just need to continue to get him to perform and get him better and better as we go to game day.”

Was there any thought of lessening of responsibility for Shula before firing him? And if not, why doesn’t that happen, or really, in college football as a whole?

“I can’t speak for every situation outside this building. It wasn’t something that I necessarily considered. I think that’s hard when I don’t know if demoted is the word, I just think that’s hard when, okay, you’re not going to do this anymore, but you’re going to continue to do this. I think in the past in college football, it was because you only had a certain number of coaches that were allowed to coach on the road, or a coach on the field. You had 10 guys. Now with the NCAA relaxing the rule on analysts, everyone can coach. So I think it’s something that each situation is different. If a coach ever did that, lessen the responsibilities in one area and increase the responsibilities in another area, I didn’t feel like that was the way to go. I’d feel like that was a tough situation to be in if you’ve been the coordinator, and now to say you’re no longer gonna be the coordinator, someone else is. If I had decided to do that, I think Coach Shula would have been the pro that he is and would have handled it great. I just didn’t feel like that was the best direction for us to go as an offense.”

Is Davis Koetter the quarterbacks coach?

“I don’t know. I didn’t sit down and give everybody new titles when I made the decision. Davis (was) in the quarterback meetings every day with Coach Shula. Davis is (still) in all of them. Now, he is the only one in those rooms, but Mike Furrey has taken a more active role – I don’t want to say necessarily with the quarterbacks, but in conjunction with the quarterbacks and receivers, so if the quarterbacks are meeting separate from the receivers, (Furrey) might be in there, but he’s probably in there with the receivers. But if (he’s) not in there, Davis is always in there. And then the receivers and the quarterbacks have been meeting over the last week or so, a little bit more together, to install and make sure everybody is on the same page.”

Will Mike Furrey be calling plays from the field?

“To be determined. I told Mike to put the staff, including yourself, wherever you feel like they need to be on game day, to call it best and operate most efficiently as an offense, and those are things that those guys are working through right now, how we want to break up who’s where – press box or sideline.”

Obviously, you’re focused on this season and this game coming up. How do you balance that with trying to figure out for the coordinator next year?

“Certainly, my loyalty is to this team and doing everything that I can to help us play our best over these next three weeks, starting this Saturday in College Station. So there’s nothing that I’m doing that is going to take me away from preparing our team to go perform our very best on Saturday. There’s nothing taking me away from that. But certainly you have an eye going forward, no matter what the coordinator situation looks like with ’26, whether it’s someone that’s already on staff, whether it’s somebody from the outside. The fact of the matter is there’s two open positions on our offensive staff that I’ve got to fill, and having the bye week allows you to do some things from that standpoint, kind of get the ball rolling, knowing that you have decisions that you have to make after the season. So I was able to utilize last week to do a lot of stuff, recruit, prepare for A&M, work on our own team, but then also get a head start on some staffing things and decisions that I have to make after the season. So I was able to do that.

“When I got hired here as the head coach, I went back to Oklahoma and finished coaching out that season to win another Big 12 championship against Iowa State. So it’s not the same situation. It’s a lot less on my plate from that standpoint. But it’s similar in that I was doing two different jobs at once. I’m not doing two different jobs right now, but there’s a little bit more that my current job entails than what it did a month ago, when I didn’t have two openings on the staff, but in due time, able to do what I need to do for that right now. My primary focus is trying to go play really well and coach really well against Texas A&M, and then when the season’s over, we can really commit to that full time.”

What’s kind of the difficulty of preparing for Texas A&M’s defense, which can be maybe a little unpredictable in the looks they give you, compounding that with the offensive coaching staff shuffle that you have?

“From our staff standpoint, we’ll be fine. We’ve got pros back in that room, and, yeah, we’re a little short-handed in some ways, but those guys work great together. And those guys back there in that offensive staff room will put a plan together that gives us a chance to go be successful. Having said that, easier said than done against this defense. One, it starts with personnel. I mean, you look at the best teams in the SEC, in my opinion, they’re old, meaning they’ve got a bunch of juniors and seniors. And Vanderbilt is that way. I think they start 21 juniors or seniors on their team right now. Alabama’s that way, especially on defense. I believe you look at A&M, I want to say they start like nine or 10 juniors or seniors on their defense. The guys up front are all old. The linebackers are older guys. It’s a lot of the same guys we’ve been playing, and then they’ve gone to the portal and brought in some guys, particularly the defensive line, that have made them better. The defensive end, (Cashius) Howell, is an absolute freak show right now. I mean, teams are double-teaming and triple-teaming him, and he’s still leading everybody in sacks all across the world. So he’s a challenge, along with everyone else.

“But then you couple that with a defensive-minded head coach who is a great defensive coordinator. I mean, we went out there in 2021, and I still have PTSD from that game, so does Zeb (Noland) with Coach Elko calling the defense that night, and he was really good then. He was really good at Duke. He’s been a fan of an elite defensive coach wherever he’s been. So now, when you have a head coach that’s running the defense like he is and is as involved as he is, it’s aggressive, and they’re well coached, and they’re physical, and they’ve got great personnel. So that’s what makes it makes it tough. Great players, a defensive-minded head coach, and they really keep you off balance from a schematic standpoint, be attacking protections. The interception that they had right before the half against Missouri, Missouri’s basically kept both tight ends in. They got a set of man protection, and they still get a guy free and hit the quarterback and turn into seven points before the half on a set of man protection. They know how to attack what you’re trying to do. They know teams are going to come into the game trying to take away how and all the other guys they have up front. And they know how to stay kind of one step ahead, and you have to go beat them.”

Why should Gamecock fans be optimistic about your chances on Saturday?

“Have you all watched us play all season? Okay. I mean, I don’t like what the record is right now, but we’ve been in every game. We’ve had every game, every opportunity to win in the fourth quarter, and pretty much every game this season, outside of a couple games, for which there’s reasons for that. But we’ve had opportunities to win every game in the fourth quarter. No one can question the want to and the effort of this team, and we’ve got a bunch of competitors on this team that are looking forward to going out to College Station and competing their butts off.”

Does changing the OC and the playcaller before this game possibly allow you guys to maybe catch Texas A&M off guard by showing them things that you haven’t shown on film earlier this season?

“Yeah, I would say, though, that’s every week. You want to throw some things at teams that they don’t expect. I mean, we see it every week because of some of the stuff we’ve done on special teams. We teams change what they do a lot of the time on Saturdays, from a special team standpoint, because they’re trying to combat some of the stuff that we do to teams from a special team standpoint, and then we have to adjust. So I don’t think you’d be doing a great job as a coach if you’re not throwing wrinkles, new stuff, plays off plays, whatever it may be. We always try and do that, offense, defense, and special teams. But certainly, when you have a change of coordinator, I don’t know if they’re watching South Carolina stuff. I don’t know if they dug up old Limestone College video, Georgia State video, or it may be West Virginia when Blackwell was there with some of those guys, Will Grier, and those people, those guys back in the day, shout out to Coach Chad Grier. So I think you’re always trying to do that.

“But definitely, when you have an off week and you have a new playcaller, there’s certainly some wrinkles. But Coach Elko is a brilliant coach, and those defensive coaches are paid well out there to stay on top of that. And then whatever new that we may show Saturday, they’ll do a great job of adjusting to it, and then we’ve got to do a great job adjusting to that.”

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I’m sure you saw the Auburn game this past weekend. They made an offensive change score a whole bunch of points. Could that happen on Saturday?

“I hope. I hope, certainly. Now, they did a great job. I was able to watch a little bit of that game, or actually, Emily and Hunter and I were at dinner on Saturday night, and we were the rude people in the restaurant to put the phone or put the game on my wife’s phone at the table so we could watch overtime of the Vanderbilt-Auburn game, but, yeah, they did a great job. But it’s week to week in this league, there’s no question about it. But that is a great example of an offense that had struggled for the most part this year. That new playcaller came in and did a great job. Whatever they did, I didn’t really study what they were doing; I hadn’t really seen much of Auburn on tape this year, other than against A&M. We’ve seen them some this week, but they did a good job, and I would hope that we would have similar results. That’d be nice.”

With the decision looming in the offseason of making the OC hire, what would it take over the rest of the season for you to really consider Mike Furrey as the full-time OC?

“Mike’s a great coach, and I’m not closing the door on anything. I’m really trying to win these next three games, starting Saturday against Texas A&M in College Station, and then looking at, okay, what gives us the best chance to be successful going forward? So it’s exciting that you can kind of structure this offense however you want to be here going into ’26 with two openings to fill and whatnot. So I don’t want to put parameters on, ‘We need to do this. We need to do that.’ We need to be trending in the right direction. But I got all the confidence in the world in Coach Furrey. I mean, he’s a guy that had job offers after this past season to go places professionally and college-wise and stayed here because he believes in this place. He’s a great coach. He has done a great job recruiting, great job in that wide receiver room. I think he’s elite at what he does, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in him going forward. That’s what we’re focused on is trying to put a plan together and go play really well in College Station on Saturday.”

For your guys who have been out for much of the season, like Jaylen Brown, George Wilson, is there anybody who could be on track to play at some point?

“No. They’re trending in the right direction. It makes me sad because Jaylen and George were two portal guys that we brought in that thought would bring, not thought we would bring, help to that edge room, and they’ve been out the whole season, not to mention Kobe (Sakyi-Prah) too. So it breaks my heart when I walk through the training room each day and see those guys in there. We have him, but I literally just told Jaylen that downstairs before I came up. It won’t be long before he’s back out there, but not training to be ready in these next three weeks, any of those guys. Ryan Brubaker, now is, you know, credit to him. He missed all the spring practice, essentially, and thought his injury may be long, long, long, long-term, but he’s actually back out there practicing right now in his health, which is pretty awesome, too. I mean, what a testament to Ryan and the warrior that he is, because he had a long road ahead of him. We thought by no means that he’d be practicing in November, but he is, so that’s a credit to him. But he’s the only one that’s back somewhat healthy, but the rest of those guys are trending in the right direction.”

It seems like your first three offensive coordinators here have had very similar backgrounds with a lot of NFL experience. Is that something that you’re still kind of married to? Are you willing to open up a little bit, maybe consider some other things?

“Yeah, I’m open to anything. I push back a little bit on the narrative that I haven’t gotten these coordinator hires right. Have we been efficient enough on offense and consistent enough on offense? Absolutely not. But let’s also not act like we brought in three coordinators and we just fired all of them, and we just threw up our hands. I mean, we brought in a guy in year one that had been an offensive coordinator in college. Yes, (Marcus Satterfield) had a pro background when that pro background was with Joe Brady with the Panthers, who they did a pretty freaking good job when he was running a pro-style offense at LSU that year and won the national championship. Now, yeah, they had Joe Burrow and whatnot, but he sat and spent time in the NFL, but he was a college guy that people can, you know, say what they want about him. He won seven games as the offensive coordinator our first season, starting four different quarterbacks, and then the next season, he hung 63 on Tennessee at the end of the season and scored more points against Clemson than any offensive coordinator has here since I’ve been the head coach and didn’t get fired a coach that he worked for previously at Western Carolina, Temple, and the Carolina Panthers got the head coaching job in Nebraska, and his very first call was to him to go be the offensive coordinator. So I know people have perceptions of he was this pro-style guy that had this complicated offense. Well, we did a lot of really good in his time, too. Consistent enough? No.

“Then the next guy, yes, had been primarily in the NFL, but (Dowell Loggains) was intriguing because he spent a year at Arkansas, or two years, whatever it was in, and time at Penn State with James Franklin being around college offenses. So yes, his background was the NFL, and I hired him because of one good football coach. Two had been exposed to the college game with the Art Briles system, because he was working for Kendall Briles in Arkansas. But yes, his primary background was the NFL. Came here, left to become a head football coach. So I’d say, were we consistent enough out of the last two seasons? No, we need to be, but he left for a promotion.

“And then this one quality football coach who had been all basically his entire career since he left Alabama, Mike (Shula) had been in the NFL and then spent time in our offense in the college game in ’24, and then I thought it was a seamless transition. So I know I just diverted off your question, all three of those guys, yes, did have pro backgrounds. Do we need to be more consistent on offense? Yes. I don’t like the inconsistency we’ve had since I’ve been the head coach, and that’s on me, totally on me. We have to score more points, turn the ball over less, and have to get sacked less. Every year, I come in here in spring practice when I meet with you guys and talk about the things we need to do better on offense, and it’s too many sacks and too many turnovers, and this year is no different; it’s like a frickin broken record. We’ve got to be better from that standpoint. But to answer your question, whoever gives us the best chance to be successful. If we hire from outside, would I like to hire someone who’s been an offensive coordinator? I think that’d be awesome. If the best person is from the NFL and can fit what we want to do here offensively, then so be it. I’m not closing the door on anything, but I also understand as we go into 2026, whoever is in that position, we need to score more points than what we’ve done this year and every year. We haven’t scored enough, and that’s on me to get the right guy in here and get that right.”

How much are you looking for Furrey’s energy and vocalness to play a role and sort of improve? Because obviously, it’s a quick turnaround from that decision to game day.

“Yeah, a lot. I believe that players, in so many ways, take on the personality of their coach. Mike Shula’s personality is different than Mike Furrey’s. It doesn’t mean that one’s right or wrong. Mike Shula has won a lot of football games and has called plays in the Super Bowl, and has been an SEC head coach that won double-digit games with that personality. So it doesn’t make it wrong. Mike’s personality is different, and it is a different voice, and there’s a different energy, vibe, whatever you want to call it in those offensive meetings, on the offensive field. We did a period in practice last week against the defense, the first offense versus the first defense, where we said it was third down. And I told Mike, ‘Hey, you got two downs to get there.’ He said, ‘Do I have two downs?’ Meaning, ‘If I don’t get it on third down, are we going to go for it on fourth down?’ He said, ‘Do I have two downs?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he’s like, ‘Doesn’t matter. I only need one.’ And then when he got out there, he got the first down on third down. That’s just his mentality. And you hope LaNorris, some quarterbacks and the rest of the offense kind of feed off that confidence and energy. But what gives you confidence in a game is going out there and performing well, so that’s what’s going to matter is coaching well and playing well on Saturday against a really good defense and a really good team in a really challenging environment, that we’ll be going into.”

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