South Carolina coaches play Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide possession in OT two-point shootout during spring game

The South Carolina spring game delivered quite a rarity: Overtime. And head coach Shane Beamer eschewed the desires of SEC Network’s Roman Harper to have a field goal kick-off and opted for the offenses to go back-and-forth on two point conversion attempts.

It’s a sensible choice, as practicing offense in small areas — and an actual overtime-like settings — has valuable. But Beamer and his coaches had some fun with it, too.

To decide who would get the ball to start, a pair of assistant coaches played Rock, Paper, Scissors. Best 2-out-of-3, of course. The garnet team won and got their choice of possession in the 1st annual South Carolina spring game overtime two-point shootout.

Shane Beamer decides for a 2-point conversion sudden death, as game ended in tie.

Paper-Rock-Scissors to determine who got to choose first up for South Carolina pic.twitter.com/nepPOOA9mn

— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) April 16, 2023

“I love it, they’re an awesome group to coach. So much fun. We decided literally right before overtime. I asked Clayton [White] and Dowell [Loggains], our coordinators, and [Pete] Lembo, ‘Let’s just do a two-point play shootout.’ We’ve got a bunch of young guys in there that may not know what to do from the 25 yard line,” Beamer told Harper after the black team pulled out a 19-17 win on the second round of two-point tries.

Besides the fun of it, Beamer loved how his team was competing even in an exhibition game overtime gimmick, of sorts. Even some of the South Carolina starters like Spencer Rattler, Juju McDowell and Juice Wells wanted to get back into the game.

“They’re all mad at me because the first team offense and defense wanted to go back in after they hadn’t played the whole second half. They were mad at me because I wouldn’t let them go in. So, I love that about them. They’re invested and they’re awesome to coach,” Beamer said.

And pitting his team against itself in a two-point shootout fit with one area that Beamer wanted to assess: Playing like a well-coached team. If players knew their assignments, got to the right spots and played with the proper technique, Beamer was going to be content with whatever happened.

And what better place to test that than from inside the five yard line, with little room to operate.

“Clean football, coming out of it healthy like every coach says. But, clean, look like a well-coached team. Seeing — I just told them in the locker room — that we look like what our standard is: Playing physical, competing our butts off, that’s what I want to see,” Beamer said pregame.