South Carolina excited about opportunity to play in Citrus Bowl: 'What a statement'

Shane Beamer was about as disappointed as anyone when he learned his team wouldn’t be in the College Football Playoff. A few days later, that disappointment turned into pure joy when he found out where South Carolina was going next.

The No. 15 Gamecocks are heading to the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl to take on No. 20 Illinois on New Year’s Eve in Orlando, Florida. The vibes were completely different from the fourth-year head coach after the news became official on Sunday.

“You guys (the Citrus Bowl) are excited, but I don’t think you’re more excited than we are about coming down there,” Beamer said. “I mean, this was the best possible outcome, in our opinion, of where we could be playing.”

Throughout the day, Beamer wasn’t sure where the team’s next destination would be. The Citrus Bowl was on the table but it could’ve easily been another bowl game. But this is where they always wanted to be if it weren’t the playoff.

“I was meeting with a player when he found out. And the door was shut, and I came out of the meeting with the player and Coach (Ray) Tanner walked in,” Beamer said. “I don’t know if it was this impactful as when he called me to offer me the job and said, ‘Are you ready to do this?’ But when he came in and said, ‘Get ready for Disney World!’ I gave him a bear hug, I can’t lie. So, there was a lot of excitement, for sure.”

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The Citrus Bowl gets the first pick at which SEC team it wants to be a part of this game. And that pick is usually the highest-ranked team, which would have been Alabama in this case. Yet the bowl committee went against the norm and chose the Gamecocks.

“What a statement. The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl had a choice on who they wanted, and they chose us,” Beamer said. “… That’s what I’m going to tell these guys here tonight is, they already know, and they don’t need me to tell them, but they chose us and it’s a statement about our team. It’s a statement about our program. It’s a statement about our fan base.”

In the aftermath, Beamer’s phone blew up with calls from friends and family who had already bought their game tickets and booked flights to Orlando to see the team play.

“I know our fans are really excited and I know our players are excited. It’s a great statement about what we’ve done this season but what we’re about as a program,” he said. “Outside the playoff, this is the best bowl there is in the SEC. Really the best bowl there is in the country in my opinion outside of the playoff. And for us to be a part of it is really cool.”

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In years past, the two teams playing in the Citrus Bowl will make a trip to a nearby theme park, which makes sense since Orlando is the “theme park capital of the world.” South Carolina will surely have some time to do the same when it arrives.

Beamer doesn’t seem to have a preference with which theme park the Gamecocks go to, citing he’s been to both Universal and Walt Disney World. But he already knows this is a trip that his family is excited about for those reasons.

“When the kids were growing up, we always took them down there and did the Magic Kingdom with Disney and all that,” Beamer said. “So, I’m excited about both of (Disney and Universal). And I can assure you the Beamer children are ecstatic about this trip when I told them.”

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