Beamer says Gamecocks offense getting "closer"

Shane Beamer spoke on Tuesday about the Gamecocks offense and their early struggles. Gamecock Central’s Kendall Smith has more.

MORE: Quotes, quotes and more quotes: South Carolina-Charlotte

By Collyn Taylor

Shane Beamer

On getting up the ball to South Carolina’s playmakers: “Well, we have to stay on the field, for sure. We have to get first downs. I said it last week too that I was going to come in here on Tuesdays and you guys are going to be asking me after a game where Juice (Wells) has a lot of catches why he didn’t.

We had some other guys who made some plays. Not enough of them. The biggest thing is we have to sustain drives. We have to stay on the field on third down. Again, we have a lot of guys on our offense that can make plays that I feel like are weapons. We want them all to have touches for sure. But you look at Georgia.

(Brock Bowers) obviously had some great plays the other day but (Darnell Washington), I don’t think caught a ball. They have really good running backs but none of them carried the ball an immense amount of time as well. We’ve got enough guys and have to go where the read if it’s a pass takes us or if it’s a run. The biggest thing is we need to stay on the field and run more plays.”

South Carolina football: quotes, quotes and more quotes (Charlotte)

Gamecocks’ Coordinators

Marcus Satterfield on the Dakereon Joyner play on third down for South Carolina: “We wanted to get to it really early on third down. They are going to bring some simulated pressures. I wanted them to be thinking, ‘What the heck are they doing on third down?’ I wanted to see if we could calm them down a little bit.

The gap scheme plays like that have been good for us on third down. The week before against Arkansas they double-mugged us and we ran the counter for a touchdown. Those things are always in there sprinkled into the game plan.

We knew we wanted to get to it early. That play had a pass option to it if they walked the linebacker out we had numbers in the run game. We just got a little bit condensed on the kick-out block.”

Clayton White on South Carolina EDGE Jordan Burch’s production: “There was a time during the second quarter of that Arkansas game where you felt him on the sideline saying, ‘Oh they’re passing it? He’s back there again. He’s back there again.’ These are the most reps he’s ever taken. It’s exciting to see him out there.

I think coach (Sterling) Lucas is picking something out every single day he wants Jordan Burch to work on. Today it was being more dominant on the edge in the run game. I just watched 10 clips and can see him improving. He’s the guy where you tell him exactly what you want; he has the right mindset and makeup to go work on that exact thing. His best football is ahead of him, and I’m glad he’s out there playing.”

WIN! Framed picture of Williams-Brice Stadium signed by George Rogers

Satterfield on Josh Vann’s comment on his podcast: “He came up here last night and was like, ‘I need to apologize to you.’ I thought he was talking about a route and was like, ‘You’re good, man.’ He left and someone sent me a text and I texted him and was like, ‘Oh that’s what you’re apologizing about. I wish I had known that.’

It happens. We have a series of pays in a certain formation that’s kind of a base play for us. They gave us the exact look we wanted and needed for that play to be successful. I called it and we hadn’t repped it in about three weeks so I shouldn’t have done it.

I can’t promise you I won’t do it again. I’ll try not to. We have base plays that have to carry over from week to week.”

Clayton White on South Carolina stopping the run: “Right now, it’s definitely been a difficult thing. I feel like last week, their running backs each had 30 yards. We feel like we did improve in that area. There were some areas we did improve on.

The quarterback ran for like 60 (yards) and we have to cover reverses. We missed a sack here and there. We felt like there was a small improvement. It doesn’t show on paper but when we watch the tape we see things improving and things we can get better at.”

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South Carolina players

Zacch Pickens on his play this year: “I’ve been OK with what I’ve been doing. There is still some stuff I’m trying to figure out. Sometimes I’m too high and I’m trying to correct that now. I’m not trying to be high forever.

I’m trying to stay low when I come out. Then whenever it’s pass, I’m trying to work a pass (move) quickly and not be passive and wait on it. That’s something I’m trying to work on now and talk to coach Lindsey about.”

Jalen Brooks on the Gamecocks’ offense so far: “We just have to keep on striving and keep our heads down. Keep going to work each and every day and find ways to improve. I feel so great about this team and my teammates and my coaches. I feel like we have all the right people. We just have to put everything together and then we just rock out.”

Kai Kroeger on the fake punt: “It was something we worked in practice. If the look was going to be there we were going to run it. Fortunately, we came out and coach Beamer said to run it. I was like, ‘All right. Here we go.’ I threw a little pregame just to get my arm loose.

I went out there. Luckily they were in the formation we thought they’d be in. I gave a little pump fake to the linebacker, and it actually worked pretty well surprisingly. I saw Trae running down the seam there and tried to give him a good ball and he caught it.

After looking at the film I saw DK (Joyner) pretty much running wide open on the sideline. It would have been nice to hit him there, but happy we converted and Trae made a nice play there.”

Pickens on South Carolina misplaying run fronts: “Say somebody was supposed to blitz and didn’t, they were still in coverage. With that, nobody was there to fill that hole for us, especially when he ran out.

The quarterback kept it and scrambled. Well, the cornerback was supposed to blitz on that play but he didn’t come. And he almost scored. That’s mainly it. It was miscommunication.”

Brooks on offensive potential: “I feel like we’re bits away to reaching that potential. If we continue to get one percent better each and every day it’ll be here faster than we know it. We have to keep on stacking each day brick by brick and stacking the good days.”

Debo Williams on defensive injuries: “Next man up mentality. Everyone has to step up. We’re SEC players for a reason. When it’s your time, it’s your time to shine. Every one of us is brothers. I don’t think it’s a chemistry thing.

It’s having a flow, having confidence, especially if you haven’t had as many reps. Coming in and playing with confidence. If we make a mistake, we’re going to rally together. As long as you’re playing 100 percent and with your brothers, you can never be wrong.”

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