What Shane Beamer said after South Carolina's Gator Bowl loss
South Carolina couldn’t survive a Gator Bowl shootout with Notre Dame on Friday night, losing 45-38.
With the loss, Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks finish the 2022 season 8-5 (4-4 SEC).
Beamer is now 15-11 in his two years at the helm of the South Carolina program, with a 1-1 record in bowl games.
Here are some the highlights from Beamer’s post game press conference:
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-Congrats to Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame
-“What a game and what an environment”
-“We had our opportunities and scored twice on defense…proud of our football teams”
-I was slightly confused on this because I didn’t hear him clearly, but he essentially said they played with 12 guys on offense and defense that didn’t play in the Clemson game.
-“Left everything out there, really proud to be their coach…we’ve got a hurting group of guys that left it all out there.”
-Gave a big thank you to the fan base for coming down to Jacksonville
-“Not the outcome we wanted but what an environment…we have the best fan base in the country”
-Beamer on the four straight drives with negative yardage:
-We got beat out there on the perimeter a couple of times…didn’t execute as well as we needed to”
-Beamer said play calling was a group effort but that Freddie Kitchens and Nick Coleman were the main people calling plays and putting the game plan together while everyone was on the road recruiting.
-On lack of run game: “It’s tough to put that together”
-“We were able to pop some runs early but it wasn’t enough”
-“Losing Nate Adkins to an upper-body injury in the game didn’t help but no excuses”
Win a football autographed by Rattler, Emmanwori, Kroeger, and others
-“The progress we made this season should be extremely evident”
-Talked about how South Carolina won seven out of nine to wrap up the season, beating UK, A&M, UT and Clemson
-Said the team played their “asses off” against Notre Dame
-“We’ve laid a great foundation and the program is just getting started…two years ago this program was a long way from a chance to win nine games.”
-Said Kai Kroeger was awesome but that the punt team needs to be better “mechanically”
-Added he did a great job on the fake TD, said it was a play that they’ve been repping for a year
-Felt good about the play going into the game, and had confidence in Mitch Jeter to hit the FG but Kai has some options based on how they cover it
-“Wanted to be aggressive and that was an opportunity”
-Said he knew special teams were going to be big going into the game
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-Played a lot of young guys on the perimeter on defense
-Keenan Nelson had hardly played this season but started at nickel
-Started three true freshmen in the secondary
-Went into this game with Legette, Juice, Ahmarean Brown, and DK and knew it was going to be a combo of young guys beyond the starting core at WR
-On the young WRs and WRs in general: They battled and did a great job
-End of the first half, had a great stop and got them back up
-had a return that DK is faking like he’s catching the ball and got a return with AB
-Thought the illegal blindside block: “I don’t know, looked like he tried to avoid the penalty”
-“I’ve gotta be better, can’t cost it”
-Thankful for the SEC officiating, doesn’t think he should’ve gotten the flag
-Thinks the officials tried to make it about them a few times
-The group of guys that were on our side the second half was good, the first half a bit disappointing but “I’ve gotta be better regardless”
-Reflecting on the team in general:
-“We never had to beg them to work”
-Whenever we had adversity they always responded
-“Got a bunch of fighters…anytime we lost a game we came right back and fought”
-“Hope our fans can appreciate the team and the passion and joy they played with”
-On Tyler Buchner:
-He’s a good athlete, he was the starter at the beginning of the season for a reason
-Said he recruited Drew Pyne while he was at Oklahoma and knew how good he was, added that if Buchner beat Pyne out then he knew he was going to be good
-Buchner is a tough kid and a good athlete
-Made big-time throws and caught our young DBs in some plays that were tough on us
-Didn’t look took different than what was seen on the little bit of tape he had
DQ Smith:
-He’s a smart kid who had a good season
-Excited that he’s a freshman and is only going to continue to get better
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Last flag:
-We gotta be smarter and not retaliate and get a 15-yard penalty
-That can’t happen, we’ve been a disciplined football team
-Missed tackles and penalties hurt
-We didn’t retaliate a couple of times
-You can’t get an intentional grounding and then a late hit back-to-back hits
-Very few people thought last year we’d finish in a bowl game with a bowl win
-Lots of people probably thought the same thing this year
-We made a ton of progress, it’s just the beginning
-The depth is not where it needs to be right now but with the way we’re recruiting and the young men that we had in the class, we’re headed up and just getting started
-It’s a journey and today was a bump
-Rattler’s finish to the season:
-Great player, a great young man
-He was lighting it up in the first half
-he’s a heck of a football player that continued to get better as the season went on
-Certainly was a catalyst for our late season success
