What Shane Beamer said at Charleston Welcome Home Tour event
South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer spoke at the Charleston Gamecock Club meeting Wednesday night as the Welcome Home Tour rolls on.
GamecockCentral was on hand for the event. Here’s what Beamer had to say.
On doing the Welcome Home Tour stops
“I love it. Obviously being able to come to an awesome place like Charleston makes it even more enjoyable, without a doubt. But it’s one of the many things I love about college athletics, just being able to come to events like this and hear from our fans and meet them. But the thing that I love is hearing their stories about what Gamecock football means to them and hearing their excitement and love for this university and the Garnet and Black. It’s a great reminder for me about why I do what I do.”
Expanding on the quarterback situation
“We compete every day in our program and my conversation with LaNorris was yeah, coming out of spring practice you’re our starting quarterback. And now I expect you to continue to do the things this summer just like I expect Kai Kroeger at punter to continue to do those things and Debo Williams at linebacker. No one’s ever content or complacent, and I know LaNorris isn’t. I told Robby (Ashford) too, I called Robby on Monday night and reiterated to him again that we’re continuing to compete throughout the summer. When we get to the first game, the guys that give us the best chance to win the football game are the ones that are going to be out there playing. But we’ve got a handful of really talented quarterbacks. Eager to watch those guys along with our other players continue to develop this summer.”
On how his golf game is looking
“Golf game’s okay. Golf game’s solid. Month of May for me, I’m able to kind of get it dialed in a little bit for the summertime. But I haven’t played nearly enough to feel great about it right now. It’s not as good as it will be in July.”
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On how Kam Pringle is adjusting to college football
“Kam is doing great. Give credit to him, he worked in the spring time and was able to get out there and do some stuff in practice. We weren’t really sure how much he was going to be able to do, but he was pretty active during spring practice — not 100 percent for all 15 days. But we were able to get enough, he was able to get some really good work during the spring. Obviously, it’s the hardest position to play as a freshman as on the offensive line. We saw that last season. We had two true freshmen that started, but they didn’t even get to Columbia until June. It’ll be so beneficial for Kam because he’s been here since January. He’s gone through spring practice, he knows how we do things in the weight room. He’s really acclimated and adjusted well off the field, socially, academically. And then he’s really done a good job on the field. I’m excited to see the steps that he will take this summer going into preseason camp.”
On Pringle getting in better shape
“I mean, he’d be the first to tell you he probably needed to lose some weight, get rid of that baby fat, whatever you want to call it. But he’s done a really good job trying to be intentional about buying into what we’re doing from a nutrition standpoint, attacking the weight room, eating the right way, the way he trains. I haven’t seen him in about a week and a half and you’re reminded wow, he doesn’t really look like a freshman right out of high school.”
On if he expects Pringle to compete for a starting spot on the offensive line
“Absolutely. We came out of spring practice feeling that we’ve got a really good group of offensive linemen that are all going to be competing for. the opportunity to play and to get into that rotation. Kam is certainly right in the mix of that. Our freshmen, I’m really excited about. He and our other freshmen offensive linemen and then our freshmen last year are now a year older. He’s around some really good players and they’re all making each other better. But we fully expect him to get in there and compete and have the opportunity to earn a significant role this season.”
On what he was doing in Kansas City on Wednesday
“Spent the morning with the Chiefs and did some other professional development yesterday. So I saw you in Florence Monday night and then at 6.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, I was on the plane headed to Kansas and spent all day yesterday in Kansas just kind of doing some professional development type stuff. Trying to make myself better as a coach, and that included visiting with the Chiefs today and just picking their brain on some stuff that they’re doing and (seeing) some of the coaches that I’ve gotten to know there as well. But it was great being able to watch them work out a little bit on the field, seeing some of the players that I coached at Georgia and Oklahoma that are now on their team and catching up with them, but something I try and do every year, and hopefully we’ll do a little bit more of this year also. I’m going to try and do some stuff in June. We’re fortunate that we got a great relationship with the Panthers, and they’re right up the road, so I want to get up there. I’ve talked to Coach (Dave) Canales up there already about coming up, so I want to do that, and then maybe one or two other NFL teams. It was beneficial, and I hope to do some more stuff like that going forward.”
On if any players are going to train like Spencer Rattler, Xavier Legette did last year during time off
“I know we have some guys this month that are going some places together. I don’t know if it’s necessarily with a pro athlete that I’m aware of. But we’ve got some guys, when I met with them at the end of spring and had some exit meetings, they talked about they were going to go to Miami and train together for four days, or they were going to go to Atlanta for three or four days and train together. And they’ll obviously be working with someone and some people. Specifics, I don’t know. We’ve got a lot of guys doing that here in the month of May, which is great. And then in the summertime, they’re pretty structured with it in June and July. That thing with Xavier was over Fourth of July. We give them a pretty good little break around the fourth, and a lot of guys went to the beach. Xavier went out west and trained with Deebo (Samuel). So I hope we do that where some guys get with Zay and train with him this summer.”
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On when he anticipates the rest of the 2024 class arriving and what their impact could look like this season
“They’ll all be there. Matthew Fuller literally is texting me right now before I walked up about how eager he is to get to Columbia. Michael Smith and Jalewis (Solomon), they will all be there Memorial Day is when they come in. So a couple days before Memorial Day actually. So the end of the month they’ll all be here. (Jerome) Simmons will be a little bit later than those guys. And then we’ve got a good group of walk-ons that are joining the program as well. They’ll all be here by the middle of June. So we should have everybody in Columbia, scholarship-wise, before June 1. Everybody on the roster, except Simmons, by the middle of June. Simmons will be shortly thereafter. We’re going to try to get them ready to play. I mean, we’re excited about all those guys. Matthew will have the opportunity to compete at running back. Jalewis will have an opportunity to compete for a role on defensive back. And then Michael’s a guy we’re really excited about as a tight end. And then Simmons as well. So we started five true freshmen at times last season. Three of them didn’t get there till June — Nyck, Tree and Tro. So we’ve shown that we can get guys ready. There’s certainly some things that I’ve looked at from last year until now that I feel like we can do even better in order to get those guys ready to play quicker. Not that Tree and Tro weren’t but just some of the things, part of the reason I went out where I did, met with some of the people I met with, just talked about how in the summertime we can maybe structure it even better to get those guys ready to play even quicker. Whether it be summer workouts in June or the way we do preseason practice, you’re always looking at how to get guys better, how to get guys ready to play quicker. But then also how quickly you can get your team to come together because every year is a big roster as I’ve talked about before.”
On picking the Chiefs training staff’s brains about injuries and keeping guys healthy during a longer season
“NFL teams are good teams to pick their brains on because they do play a long season. Now they play 20 games before you even get into playoffs. So it’s a long season, that’s something that resonates more with college teams now because of the College Football Playoff — it’s going to be a longer season. This year, we have two off weeks. So it’s a longer regular season in a lot of ways. So those are all things that I may be talking to them about today or there are conversations where I pick up the phone and call another college head coach and ask them kind of the same questions. One thing for us is looking at just August and how we structure things that we need to tweak things to be a little bit better coming out of the gate. We didn’t start very good last season, the year before we started out 1-2 losing to Georgia and Arkansas. So looking at, ‘Okay, I like what we do in August, but are there some ways we can tweak it to be even better, maybe a little bit healthier and fresher starting. Now, both those seasons, you’re playing really good teams, but there’s no question you’re always looking to get better, and that’s one way to do it is being able to pick their brain and their training staff.”
On how he juggles NIL, transfer portal and players coming and going
“It’s a challenge and it’s just daily. It’s really just each and every day try to sustain but also make your program better each and every day and understand that the last two weeks of April that we did it essentially but any of my players could have called me and say they decided to enter the transfer portal. We lost some guys talked about previously that decided to leave because they wanted to go somewhere and play, which I totally understand, we had great conversations. But when that portal is open at the end of April for two weeks, you can get a phone call and it can be somebody you counted on being a starter for you that’s leaving. And thankfully, we didn’t have that. But you’ve just got to prepare, and I don’t want to say expect that, but you just understand that’s part of it. And when that happens being able to adjust and make that situation a positive. Not that somebody leaving is a positive, but if somebody leaves you’ve got a chance to replace them with somebody better on and off the field. But it’s certainly a challenge and it’s one that all of us as coaches are learning there’s no manual to refer to. I don’t call my dad who coached for tons of years and ask how he handled the transfer portal or NIL because he didn’t. So it’s something that all of us as coaches are just sitting there trying to figure out.”
On Drew Tuazama transferring and how that all played out
“The grad transfer window is a little bit different after you graduated. Those are some things that I thought during spring practice were probably trending in that direction. Again, it’s a situation where good player that we were excited about and still are excited about just wanted the opportunity, I think, to play a little bit more. He’s worked at the EDGE position and the tackle position since he’s been here in Columbia. And that’s a position that we brought in some really good players either from high school recruiting or the transfer portal since January. He’s in the mix with a lot of other guys at that position. I think from Drew’s standpoint, and I don’t want to speak for him, but I think he just felt like I got a year to play football or another opportunity here in front of me. I want to go somewhere where my role is a little bit more solidified than what it is here.”
