Shane Beamer on importance of keeping coaching staff together

Shane Beamer learned from his dad that continuity is one of the best things for a coaching staff. Frank Beamer was loyal to his assistant coaches throughout his career at Virginia Tech, and it earned him seven conference championships as well as a trip to the national title game in 1999.

With Shane Beamer set to enter his second season as the head coach of South Carolina in 2022, he aimed to follow his father’s philosophy. The Gamecocks brought back eight of their 10 assistants from 2021, including both coordinators. After a 7-6 finish and Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory in Year 1, Beamer is confident that consistency will lead to an even better follow up.

“I think it’s huge,” he said in a press conference following South Carolina’s spring practice. “It’s nothing that I realized, I already knew it. I saw that from my dad. If you look at his coaching staffs at Virginia Tech, they stayed in tact for the most part for his entire career. He had Bud Foster on his defensive staff going back to 1981 at Murray State. Bud I’ve known since I was two years old when he was a player on my dad’s team at Murray State. He had the same defensive line coach from 1996 until he retired in 2015. Had the same tight ends/offensive line coach since 1989. On and on and on. It’s great for the continuity within your program for sure. It’s great for the continuity outside of your program when it comes to recruiting because the same coaches are going in the same high schools year after year after year. They know everyone in the school. They know who the eighth grader, ninth grader, 10th grader is coming up. You don’t have to re-learn that or educate yourself on a new area recruiter if you’re the high school.”

South Carolina also made a big splash in the transfer portal this offseason, landing former Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler. That was a position the Gamecocks desperately needed to address after starting four different players at quarterback in 2021. Beamer also previously had a relationship with Rattler, as he was an associate head coach for the Sooners from 2018-20.

With the addition of Rattler and an extra year of time to learn the playbook, South Carolina will look to improve after finishing an alarming 13th in the SEC in total offense last year. If that happens, Beamer believes it will be because of the hard work the staff has put in to building something special.

“I’ve been really pleased with what our guys have been able to retain because they’re not having to teach a new system,” the coach said. “That was important for us on offense, defense and special teams. Offensively specifically, the best thing for us was to continue to build on the great things that we did last season and not have to have our entire offense learn a new offensive system. Let’s continue to find ways where we weren’t very good last year in all three phases and continue to evolve and take the next step. So far, so good. Our guys are more confident and comfortable on those three phases of what we did last year, but we’ve also been able to take the next step and build on that as well. …It’s huge and something that will always be important to me, just the continuity year in and year out. You’re always gonna do what’s best for the program and getting the right people in the program, but to me, when you can keep that group in tact and continue to evolve it’s a great thing.”

The Gamecocks are scheduled to host their annual Garnet-Black game on April 16 to close the spring season.