South Carolina Gamecocks College Football Pregame Quote, 10/08/2024

OPENING STATEMENT: “I was told that they are honoring the 1974 championship team this weekend that Sylvester Croom, who I worked for at Mississippi State and who gave me my first full-time coaching job in the SEC. He was a member of that team, team captain and All-American and All-SEC. So I believe he will be there on Saturday. It will be great to see coach Croom who has meant so much to me on and off the field. Just a great place with a lot of tradition. A ton of respect for coach DeBoer and what he has done in his career. I went and talked to a lot of coaches and went and visited some schools after last season and Washington and him were going to be one of the places that I was absolutely going to go out and spend time with just because of the respect that I have for him and what he has done in his career no matter where he has been as a coach. Then, he got the Bama job unfortunately for me and I don’t think he was going to allow me to come to Tuscaloosa and spend a few days with him and pick his brain. Maybe. A ton of respect for the job that he does and the first class person and coach he is. He is a fantastic coach. Has a great coaching staff. Offensively, with what they are doing and coach Sheridan, their offensive coordinator. I know coach DeBoer is heavily involved with that and very creative in what they do. They have really good players. Obviously, starts with their quarterback. Defensively, with coach Wommack and what he is doing. Obviously, his dad was an assistant coach here so he is very familiar with our program and he did an awesome job as the head coach at South Alabama and is doing a really good job with their defense. They know what they are doing on special teams. They use good players. They are well coached. They have good schemes.  Big challenge for us in all three phases but I know our guys are eager to get over there and compete and get back out on the field.”

On what Vanderbilt did with a mobile quarterback and if there is something they can exploit

“There is a lot of stuff that Vanderbilt put on tape that, frankly, we do in the run game, as well. So, there are also certain things. Now, you also have to say to yourself, OK, Vandy had some success against them doing this, so is Alabama going to line up the exact same way and do the same thing? You don’t know. We are going to be who we are and do what we do. Like any game, whether it be the Vanderbilt game or the Western Kentucky or South Florida games that they played this year. There are going to be things that we see on tape that we feel like have a chance to be successful that fit us that we will implement. Certainly, Vanderbilt did a really nice job of moving the football. They did an awesome job of protecting the football. They did an awesome job of converting on third down. I think they were 12-of-18.  I’d like to copy that, for sure, their ability to stay on the field and score points. They had a really good plan. I think the biggest thing is, Vanderbilt played really, really  hard and really, really physical against them, as well.”

On Bangally Kamara redshirting

“He came to my office (on Tuesday) and told me he was redshirting,” Beamer said. “I told him that’s not quite how this works. We can have a discussion about his role. And is redshirting best? We went back and forth a little bit. I think his situation is a little bit different than some ‚Äì there’s guys on our team right now that we’ve had conversations with that ‚Äì we’re doing what we have to do in 2024 to win football games, but if we can save your redshirt year and not play you in five games, we will. Freshmen who have played some. Older guys who have started that have played some this year, we’ve had those conversations with that maybe don’t have the role on offense, defense that they want. But he was a guy that played a season-high in snaps on Saturday at linebacker and was going to continue to play more for us moving forward. My job is to do what’s best for the team and what was best for the team, in my mind, was Bangally continuing to play and helps us try to go beat Alabama this weekend. He didn’t quite feel the same way, so in the end, I made the decision for him. It was probably best to move on.”

On who steps up in Kamara’s place

“Mo Kaba and Fred Johnson. We have a rotation there, Debo, Bam, D-Knight and Gally – those four guys all rotated through, so we’re fortunate that we still have D-Knight, Debo and Bam and then Mo Kaba, who’s played a lot of football for us and is really doing a good job on special teams and defense for us. I love what he’s about right now. And then Fred Johnson is a guy that’s doing a great job on special teams, then will continue to come along, so we’re good at linebacker. I met with some of the leaders of our defense, to make sure they were on the same page, as far as my decision (how) to handle that. They were 100 percent on board in moving on. Wish him well in wherever his next stop is. I appreciate all he did for us, but we’re not getting ready for 25 around here. We’re trying to win in 24.”

On how he goes about emphasizing penalties

“It is a combination of things. The ones that bother me are the pre-snap and post-snap. Penalties, do we want to be the least penalized team in the SEC? Absolutely. Does that mean that if you are the least penalized you are going to win? No. I am sure you guys are aware, because y’all do y’alls analysis and breakdowns and studies of our penalties. So I am sure that you guys are aware that last season, the three most penalized teams in the SEC had 31 wins between them. Two of them won 11 games and the other one won nine games and they were the three most penalized teams in the SEC. The least penalized team didn’t go to a bowl game last season. You are exactly right and I am exactly right. The penalties make me sick. The penalties are going to happen. It’s the pre-snap penalties that make you want to throw up. It is the post-snap penalties that we had on Saturday that we can’t have.  The last one of those I remember that a player had, maybe I am wrong, was at East Carolina my second game as head coach. Over on our sideline, we got a taunting penalty. We have been good with the post-snap. It’s the pre-snap where we have to be better. You understand that some penalties are going to happen. Some penalties get called that probably aren’t good calls. What we try and do is in practice,  emphasize technique where when we are doing any kind of blocking drill, we are screaming and yelling, ‘Get our hands inside.’ Today, we have done this all along, but we did a whole lot of (claps) as you can imagine in practice today so  our defense doesn’t jump. Not that we all of a sudden starting that this week. We have been doing that as long as I have been the head coach here but we clearly haven’t done a good enough job of it. We show video of penalties. Here is why this is a penalty.  Torrian Gray, in front of the whole team, here is a pass interference penalty so we all hear, what’s the technique that we need to play with right here so we don’t get this penalty? Lonnie Teasley, hey we got a holding penalty right here. What are we teaching right now so everybody is on the same page about what the penalty is? We are looking at ways to emphasize it better. It is too many. You realize that penalties are going to happen. I think it is just constantly educating. Holding guys accountable, which we do whether it be pre-snap, post-snap, during the snap. Really, just trying to emphasize and teach better than we have throughout the week, meetings and practice.”

On figuring out what they do well offensively after Saturday

“Just offense, like offense, defense and special teams, game ends on Saturday night and the assistant coaches have their process. Then, I think I mentioned to you guys on the teleconference. I was here in Sunday morning early and I watch the tape the multiple times before I meet with the offensive staff at 11. When I meet with them at 11 a.m. on Sunday mornings, I talk to them about what I see and issues and what we need to do going forward. That is every week. At that point, the offensive staff has had those meetings, as well. We talked on Sunday, let’s look at what we are doing. Let’s look at who we are doing it with. Do we have the right people in the right places? and then let’s look at how we are coaching it to be done because we weren’t good enough on Saturday and how do we finish drives better? I told the team this morning. I think we had seven drives on Saturday where we crossed the 50-yard line and we got three points out of it. When you cross the 50, you are basically 15 yards away from being in field goal range and for whatever reason, we didn’t do a good enough job of finishing and we haven’t all season. I know we aren’t good enough on third downs. So it is really taking a step back again and saying, ‘What, who and how are we doing things?’ Then, lets also look at what we are doing in practice. Let’s look at how we are teaching it. Let’s look at how we are practicing because I don’t think there are a lot of things that I looked at on Saturday and said, ‘Well, that was a horse crap scheme like why are we doing that or why are we calling this? To me, it was more just the details and execution of how we are doing it. If we have a mesh concept called on offense and the linebacker for the other team opens up and walls you. We have to know that we can’t run right down the middle of the guy twice because you are going to get called for offensive pass interference. That is what happened. Let’s hammer down the details of, OK, if they do wall us, we can’t run right through the guy. We have to be better talking about how to avoid the guy and whatnot. Or if we have this run scheme called and they play a little bit of a different technique than maybe we expected on the defensive line, how we can block this play no matter what they line up in. That starts in practice with how we teach and how we script and how we call things and we have tried to do an even better job of that this week so we can, not so much go back to the drawing board, but be better at executing Saturday morning I guess than what we were last week.”

On if there is a line that a player can’t cross in on the field celebrations

“A line, I don’t I have a hard fast rule in that, if you do this, than this is going to happen. We try and talk to our guys all the time about how we handle our business and how we do things. I know you are specifically asking about the Dylan Stewart play which is unacceptable. Dylan Stewart feels awful about that play. Dylan Stewart is a really good kid. Dylan Stewart’s mom feels awful about that play. She was obviously very emotional after the game. I know all the social media angels that have never done anything wrong want me to just tar and feather him out there in the middle of Five Points for his mistake. It doesn’t quite work that way. Was he held accountable in this building? Yes. Was there a punishment within this building for what he did? Yes. We care about Dylan, we love Dylan and we have Dylan’s back. A lot of people don’t but the people in this building have his back. He knows he needs to be better and it was unnacceptable, without a doubt. He was a young kid that got caught up in the emotions. I am not excusing it at all. There are a lot of things that built up before that play. Some back and forth that started in the first quarter and in the end, he let his emotions get the best of him and did something he can’t do. We try and educate him and also realize he is an 18 year old young man. He is ours and it is our job to help him just like a parent will do with a job when a child makes a mistake in a lot of ways. Certainly, we have talked about as a team, there is a way that we want to handle ourselves on the field and the class we want to play with. If something repeatedly happens, then yeah, you have decisions to make. We feel good about how we have handled that situation.”

On Demetrius Knight and what he brings as a leader

“I love Demetrius Knight. When we were recruiting him, I called Geoff Collins who was his head coach at Georgia Tech and is now at North Carolina. I asked Geoff, and I don’t want to get Geoff in trouble with any of the players that he has also coached in his career. But he said Demetrius Knight is probably my favorite player that I have ever been around in my career. I am like, ‘Wow, OK.’ I see exactly what he means. He is an unbelievable person, player. Knowing the right things to say at the right time to not just the players but to the coaches where he will come up and say something to me which I am like, ‘Man, that is exactly what I needed to hear at that moment.’ We had a team meeting on Friday night where it was scheduled to go for 25 minutes. D-Knight got up and talked in the that meeting and we were about 10 minutes into it and he said what he needed to say and the whole room was like, ‘That’s it. We don’t have to do anything else. This one is over. Let’s get to special teams.’ It was almost like a mic drop type of thing. He’s awesome. He is a great player but even better person. He is the same every single day. Love what he is about.”

On if he thought it was small things that piled up on Saturday

“We are certainly not changing everything about the program. That is for sure. We have lost games around here and typically, we have always bounced back. I am not going to bury my head in the sand and say, OK, we had some critical penalties that took points off the board against LSU. Then, we had some critical penalties that were pre-snap and post-snap against Ole Miss and say, ‘Well, we just have to be a little bit better there.’ There is clearly an issue and I have to address it, for sure. Giving up two explosive passes on defense when we play pretty good defense for the most part. But two explosive passes just because of not playing the technique quite the right way on one and a little bit of a miscommunication in the secondary on the other one is something that you need to address. Scoring three points is scoring three points. We had some things on special teams where we left some plays ou there because we weren’t as detailed as we needed to be. I think for me on Sunday it was, guys, I don’t have to come in here and talk to you guys about playing physical. Y’all play physical as crap. I don’t have to come in here and talk to you guys about playing hard. Y’all play hard. Nobody questions your effort. Where we have to be better is understanding in this league, it’s a fine line. The details are magnified.  We don’t have games in this league where you can run out the ball and you are going to win by a couple of touchdowns because you are that much better. We have seen that in this conference that every Saturday is a war. The teams that prepare the right way during the week and are detailed on Saturdays and execute are the ones that are going to be successful. We weren’t as detailed as we need to be last Saturday. I truly believe this. My dad use to tell his teams this all the time and just in life. Things are never as bad as they seem. Things are never as good as they seem. I don’t think things were as bad where I am just going to come in here on Sunday morning and blow up everything in the program. You are constantly evaluating. I talked about that last season and I made changes at the end of the season that I felt like I needed to make. It is also, we are five games into this thing and we are playing a lot of young players in spots and we have to be better than we have been. I am not excusing it. It is also staying the course. We had a bad outing. If we have a poor performance than I come in here on Sunday morning and I am going nuclear on everything in this program, I am not sure if that is the best thing for our players. You hold guys accountable. Players, coaches, staff. You continue to be demanding. You hold yourself accountable. You look at how we need to be better this week and what we need to do. Then, you try and make those changes to be better the next week out because last Saturday was nowhere near good enough and just really disappointing to play like we did. Really, just to have as poor of a first quarter as we did. That is the disappointing thing. Part of that is me. Also, trying to find the positives from Saturday and how you continue to build up on those, as well.”

On what he feels like he learned the most about himself from Saturday

“Probably just, I kicked myself in the butt. I am going to say this and people are going to be like, ‘Oh my God. Beamer said he doesn’t regret the fake punt.’ I don’t regret calling the fake punt. I am mad at myself for not calling timeout before the snap because the whole key on that play was to spring up to the line as quick as possible thinking that their defensive tackles would not been their stance yet, which they weren’t. Then, snap the ball really, really quick and we needed to get a yard. If you look at us, we get to the line of scrimmage really quick. Defensive tackles are standing up. There is one actually pointing and not even looking at the ball. If we just snap it then, it is successful. For whatever reason, and that starts with me that we didn’t emphasize how quick we need to be. That is my fault, clearly. When we got to the line and I knew that it was taking way too long and we are allowing them to dig their cleats into the ground, call timeout Shane. That is one that I kick myself in the butt for still. I told the team, it is like a car wreck in slow motion and I could see it happening and I didn’t call timeout. … Probably just that. You see it Shane, call a timeout. I let it ride and I had faith that we could make it work. The longer it went and the less likely that was to work. That is one thing. Not that I haven’t. I have trusted my instincts before. That was one that I wish I had been a little bit more decisive and just call timeout and don’t snap it. Outside of that, I think it is just really, we have to coach better. I told our staff yesterday, ‘We have coaches that love to coach. Players that love to play, lets do a great job of doing that this week and be better than what we were.’ It is every game that I look at how can I be better and mistakes I made. I made a bunch of them on Saturday and certainly need to be better this week, for sure.”

On how he feels things are going with recruiting right now

“Fantastic. Beyond great. It’s a testament to our fanbase and the environment they create at Williams-Brice Stadium, whether it’s 12 noon, national television SEC game, 7 o’clock ESPNU game versus a Mid-American Conference team or 3:30 national television game and an SEC game, that environment and that stadium is the same every week and it’s lights out. It’s rocking. Recruits see that. Got a great group of commits, got a great group of guys that were at the game on Saturday, some of the best players from the state of Georgia, from the state of Virginia, from the state of North Carolina, from the state of Alabama, from the state of South Carolina that were there on Saturday. We’ve got unbelievable players that have been here and seen us play. They’ve seen the young talent. They see the fact that we’re starting a true freshman left tackle, a redshirt freshman quarterback, see a true freshman starting at receiver, see basically a starter at tight end in Mike Smith, who’s a true freshman. They see a true freshman at defensive end in Dylan. They see Fred Johnson running around out there, David Bucey. They see a lot of freshmen playing. They see young talent. They see the environment and that stadium. Credit to our coaches and staff for the way they’ve been able to get guys here. It’s been really, really good. I took a lot of crap this summer for losing a commit at the Birdies with Beamer golf tournament. I wanted to get an emoji of a golf club or something the other night, about that #WelcomeHome, but figured I’d need my focus on Ole Miss, which I needed to do more of clearly, too.”

On what the defense is doing consistently well through five games

“I think our ability to rush the passer, for sure. We have done a good job, for the most part, of stopping the run. We have done a good job of pressuring the passer. We play an attacking style of defense here. It is why Ole Miss was double moving us so much the other day. We play aggressive in the secondary. It is why the were utilizing the snap count to try and slow our pass rush down. We know that. We have to be better. I think that is the main thing is consistently stopping the run and rushing the passer I think certainly jumps out on tape. We have older defensive tackles like we have talked about and we have talented defensive ends. The way that our linebackers are flying around. I like the way our secondary is playing, too. I know we gave up the two deep balls the other day but they won a lot of what we call 50-50 balls meaning it is you and the receiver and it is 1-on-1 and somebody has to come down with it. They won a bunch of theirs the other day, for sure, too.”

On how getting two quarterbacks involved that are good at similar things benefits the offense

“I think it is certainly good for a lot of reasons. Robby is a talented guy. It gives defenses something else to prepare for. When we played Akron, they played a two quarterback system. When you have two guys that can run the football well because of their size and speed like LaNorris and Robby can, it makes a difference, without a doubt. They can prepare for it but also, lets be real, LaNorris is a weapon with his legs. We also don’t want LaNorris carrying the ball 20 times a game either in this league. It is another guy that we can get back there. We try and each week get our most talented guys, playmakers, the ball in their hands. I would put Robby and LaNorris both in that category, for sure.”

On the sacks and if it’s possible to change much in one week

“I think it’s hard to whole sale change. We try and mix up the protections. Saturday, we had some things where we wanted to get the ball quick out of LaNorris’ hands. We had some RPOs where we have a chance to get the ball out of his hands. Ole Miss, they are really good on the defensive line and we didn’t want to sit back in the pocket all day. In a lot of our max type protections where we are keeping a running back and a tight end in, we tried to get it where we had four hands on most of their top guys meaning two people. Whether it be on number 2 or 89. Their best guys and trying to get multiple hands on him and trying to max protect so those guys don’t beat us. Moving the pocket, which we have done. We try and mix it up. That is one of the things are still looking at. We have to be better. Six sacks is six sacks, no matter how you spin it. It is not good enough. It is shame because we are running the ball fairly successfully which should make your pass protection, I don’t want to say easier, but a little bit better and we haven’t been good enough. It is not really whole sale changes. It is continuing to look at what we are doing and how we are doing it. Each week is different, too. Alabama has a talented defensive line but their interior guys are built a little bit different and play a little bit of a different style than Ole Miss’ did. The front seven is just different. I think every week is different schematically and the personnel that you are facing, also.”

On if they have a grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of the WR room

“They have certainly evolved. I don’t think there is any question they have gotten better since the beginning of the season. Again, when we talk about the details of how to do things. They are right in the middle of that just like all of our positions are. We have to be more detailed. I like the way they continue to get better. There is no question in my mind that Nyck Harbor has gotten better as a player since the beginning of the season. You can say that with a lot of guys. We have actually started a different receiver the last three games. Nyck started Saturday. The Saturday before that was Gage. The Saturday before that, Dre was one of our starters. Mazeo has been consistent out there, as well. We feel like we have a solid group of guys, there is no question about it, that have all flashed at times. Just like every position on our roster, we are continuing to try and get those guys better. Then maybe the ones that aren’t playing a lot at the receiver position. We are going to be over halfway after Saturday and we have a lot of football left. We will continue to bring everybody in that room along. I like the progress those guys have made. I think coach Furrey is doing a great job as well with the coaching and the recruiting.”