Shane Beamer explains how perception of Spencer Rattler has changed since high school

South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler didn’t exactly start his collegiate career with the best reputation after being featured on the Netflix series ‘QB1: Beyond the Lights’. Rattler didn’t exactly exhibit the best leadership traits when featured on the show, but his head coach Shane Beamer believes that he should no longe be judged by some of the lowlights if his youth.

“I think some people maybe came up with a negative connotation because of whatever show he did on Netflix or whatever it was when he was in high school, which I’ve never watched,” Beamer said. “But if you did a show on me as a 16-year-old or 17-year-old I’d probably look like a complete idiot. So I’ve never watched it and if anybody’s basing an opinion on Spencer Rattler off that TV show then God help you, because a show can make you look any way they want you to look.”

Rattler was the No. 1 quarterback prospect in the nation in his 2019 recruiting class according to On3’s Industry Ranking, attending Oklahoma for three seasons where he was famously replaced by quarterback Caleb Williams in the middle of the Sooners’ Red River Rivalry game versus Texas in 2021.

“I saw the kind of teammate and person Spencer was at Oklahoma, so I knew that, and he took criticism. Which I wasn’t in Norman that season but I don’t understand it. I mean one when he got benched, and again I don’t know what went into the decision to bench him for Caleb Williams, but he was undefeated as a quarterback that season. And he got benched during the Texas game where the punt team got a punt blocked by Texas that day, the defense at Oklahoma couldn’t stop anybody that day, I’ve watched a replay of that game,” Beamer said.

Beamer is more than familiar with Rattler, as he was part of Oklahoma’s staff for Rattler’s freshman and sophomore seasons. And even though he wasn’t there in 2021, he still sympathized with the situation that went down at the Cotton Bowl stadium that season.

“And he didn’t play great, and I get it, Lincoln (Riley) put him (Williams) in the game to kind of give the team a spark and Caleb played great and they stayed with it and the rest is history with Caleb and whatnot,” Beamer said. “But it wasn’t like Spencer went out there that day against Texas and they had a bad team going into the game, they were undefeated and ranked in the top five, and the team didn’t play that great that day. But when you’re the quarterback, sometimes the head coach feels like he’s got to make a change and he did.”

Rattler joined forces with Beamer at South Carolina following that season and the rest is history. The duo helped lead the Gamecocks to their best season since 2017, and according to Beamer, the formerly criticized QB now has a positive reputation between Norman, Oklahoma and Columbia, South Carolina.

“I only watched a little bit of Oklahoma on television after that day, but I don’t think he necessarily became a bad teammate after he lost his job from what I saw. He continued to be supportive of Caleb and handle things with class. And I talked to people at Oklahoma before we brought him out here that were in the program about Spencer and no one had a negative thing to say, it was all positive about the way he handled things and I know he still hears some people at Oklahoma and I still hear from people at Oklahoma that reach out to me that they’re pulling for him down here,” Beamer said.