What Shane Beamer, Spencer Rattler said after Tennessee's win over South Carolina

What South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer and quarterback Spencer Rattler said Saturday night during their postgame press conferences after the Gamecocks lost 41-20 to Tennessee inside a sold-out Neyland Stadium in Knoxville:

Opening Statement

“First of all, congratulations to Tennessee. They played really, really well. That was an awesome college football environment tonight. They made plays. We are going to look back on this thing, there were a lot of missed opportunities from our standpoint. Third downs and fourth downs that we didn’t convert. When you go 2-of-14 on third down and you go 2-of-5 on fourth down conversions, you make it tough on yourself. We sit there and we have a third down that early, I think on the first drive run the route the wrong depth. We have a fourth down where the route depth is not where it needs to be. Those are two critical plays in the first half. We faked a punt and we have field position plus territory, get no points out of it. We give up a touchdown the opening drive to start the second half. Proud of our players, the way they battled, fourth down and inches and we can’t get six inches on a fourth down. It’s disappointing. Field position was tough all night. Having said that, we cut it to a two-score game with nine minutes left in the game. We allow them to go 75 yards right down the field for a touchdown, which was disappointing. Proud of the effort of our guys, but we did not play well enough to win the game. When you’re on the road in the SEC, you got to capitalize on your opportunities, and we didn’t do a great job of capitalizing on our opportunities tonight.”

If Tennessee did anything South Carolina wasn’t expecting

“Not really. We knew eventually teams, because of what (Xavier) Legette has done, that teams are going to not necessarily double him, but they did what they do and try and take Xavier Legette away. We got to be able to run the ball, we got to be able to protect the quarterback better. We were trying to help with protection, we were chipping, we were trying to do everything you could from that standpoint, still gave up too much pressure. We just got to execute better.”

If there was any thought of checking the spot before South Carolina went for it and failed on fourth-and-1 in the second half

“No, I was on the sideline. I don’t know y’all, if you’re asking the question, I guess it looked closer than it was on television maybe. On the sideline, I thought we were short. Saw that it was essentially like six inches, and you got to be able to get six inches on a quarterback sneak. But no, Collin, we did not, we knew we were going for it. I already told Dowell (Loggains) it was two-downs (situation), so we knew we were going to go for it on fourth down. Wanted to just kind of go and go quick.”

If South Carolina considered running the ball late in the first half on third down, when Spencer Rattler was intercepted by Kamal Hadden, who returned it for a touchdown to go up 24-10

“There was. I think a couple of things there. Certainly, we thought about it. They had two timeouts, I know they had at least one, I think they had two timeouts. I knew if we ran the ball, they were going to call timeout assuming we don’t get it. Now, you’re backed up and you’re punting to their punt returner that’s averaging 21 yards a return right now. That’s scary as well. I trust Spencer and that’s what I told him there to start the second half. I told Dowell (Loggains) to throw it there because I trust Spencer in that situation. Obviously, a tough way to finish the half. Yes, to answer your question, we thought about running it. You run it and maybe you pop one for a first down, but the odds say they are going to get a stop, call timeout. You’re backed up and now you’re punting to a really good returner when you’re backed up and then you’re giving them field position and we know how explosive they are on offense.”

What South Carolina can do to improve defensively

“You know, I thought we were playing pretty good defense at halftime. We went in there at halftime, and I think they had 80 yards and one of those came on an explosive run. Their offense played really, really good in the second half. I don’t know, we got to get a lot better, we just told the team in the locker room, we got an open week coming up, we’re a 2-3 team right now and we’re better than a 2-3 team. That starts with me as the head coach. You are what your record says you are and right now we’re a 2-3 team that had a lot of opportunities tonight to make plays and we didn’t get it done.”

The play of South Carolina’s freshmen offensive linemen

“One, I’m proud of them. We’ll have to look at the tape, but there’s a lot of plays I’m sure they’d say they wish they could have back and have to do better. But, to start two true freshmen offensive linemen on the road in the SEC, in this environment, is pretty dang cool and I’m proud of them to be able to go out there and battle like they did. We’ll have to get it cleaned up. Started with three true freshmen tonight. Saw a lot of freshmen playing so they’ll continue to get better. We really are limited. We have seven offensive linemen out. When you talk about Jaylen Nichols, Cason Henry, Mario Anderson, those are guys that have been starters for us, or we expected to be starters by this point as well, it kind of is what it is. Sidney Fugar is somebody that we need to go back and evaluate. I don’t think that he played tonight. We need to give him an opportunity because it looks like we had some struggles, and it wasn’t just the freshmen tonight. We had some older guys who struggled out there as well.”

South Carolina Quarterback Spencer Rattler

If Tennessee did anything to throw off South Carolina’s game plan

“Credit to them, they did a great job schematically. They took away some of our best weapons. I know they limited (Xavier) Legette a lot, and that was a key focus of theirs. We just had to find other guys. They were in good coverage a lot of the time. The defensive line is really talented, twitchy guys. They had a good scheme.”

South Carolina’s run game in the loss

“We just have to be able to execute a little more, especially on my end. I feel like I missed a little bit of reads and stuff. The offensive line was blocking their tails off. Give credit to them. We just have to execute.”

Where he’ll be on Sunday after given some time to reflect on the loss

“There was a few short fourth downs that I feel like we could’ve converted. That hurt us. Obviously, the pick hurt us. We just didn’t find a rhythm all night, and I think that was it. We came out and did some good things. We couldn’t find a rhythm. We just have to clean up. We are 2-3 right now, but it doesn’t feel like we’re 2-3. 

“Offensively, we’ve been playing really well. That was our first test where they kind of matched how we have been playing. Credit to them, they did a great job. It was like their Super Bowl tonight. Congrats to them.”