Everything Shane Beamer said after the South Carolina vs. Clemson game

After No. 15 South Carolina’s major win over No. 12 ranked Clemson in the Palmetto Bowl, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to members of the media. Here’s everything he said.

Opening Statement

“I don’t know where to begin. First of all, credit to Clemson. Told Dabo after the game that no one deserved to lose that game, and that’s a class program. He’s a class coach. Kathleen, his wife, just came over here to our locker room to congratulate Emily and I. It tells you what kind of people they are. They’re special people. And no disrespect to Miami, but I’m the biggest Syracuse fan in the world. I hope Syracuse goes and wins that game tonight, and Clemson can go win an ACC next week as well.”

“But what about our team? To overcome some of the stuff that we had got overcome, so much of it self inflicted, and to just find a way to win the end is really, really special. We talked before we came over here that we needed to have each other’s backs, that, you know, offense, pick up the defense when something happens. Defense, pick up the offense. Both of them pick up special teams. And we had a lot of that today, whether it be a turnover on offense, too many of them. But a turnover, and then the defense goes out there and gets a stop. We try the onside kick. We don’t get it. Defense goes out there and gets a stop. Defense gives up a score. Offense goes right down the field and scores. And you know, we knew it was going to be a war, two great teams going at it. We just needed to get this thing to the fourth quarter and find a way to win it.”

“LaNorris Sellers is the best player in the country. And all you media people that vote on the Heisman if you’re not voting for that guy, for in the mix for the Heisman Trophy, you’re out of your minds. Like, name a player in the country that’s done more than that kid has this year, particularly today, in the environments that he’s done it in, in the moments that he’s done it in. I mean, he put our team on his back today. He put our team on his back today, and we talked at halftime that Clemson had played a great first half, and a lot of their guys had made a lot of individual plays, and that we needed our guys, like guys best players needed to step up and make plays. And that kid sure as hell did what a performance to be third and forever down there on that last drive, and him to do what he did, he’s special.”

“They’re [players] taking pictures of the press conference. That’s when you know it’s a special day. But I told the defense, before they went back out there on the field on that last drive, that this is why Debo and Boogie and Tonka and Bam Scott and TJ Sanders and O’Donnell and all these seniors like they came back for a moment like this, to go out there and get a stop, and then the whole drive, I’m like, I freaking jinxed them, because Clemson goes right down the field and they’re in field goal range, our mantra on defense is to put the ball down, and we put the ball down one more time. What a play by D Knight. What a special young man, man he is, and and that was it. So what a day, what a day. So proud of our players, so happy for him.”

On the maturity of LaNorris Sellers

“We had a two minute drill the other day in practice where I thought he made a really dumb decision, and I was reminded that he’s still a freshman, so that surprised me a little bit, one of the plays that he made in two minutes the other day on Thursday in practice. But outside of that. No, he’s a competitor. He’s a warrior. Nothing bothers him. He’s so poised and just doesn’t get too hot, too low. He was just having fun out there playing.”

[Get our free newsletter! Don’t rely on search engines and social media for your Gamecock info.]

On South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances

“I do believe we deserve a spot in the 12-team playoff. To me, it’s hard to I get it. The committee has a really tough job. They have to choose the 12 best teams. But I get it. We got three losses. I understand that, but it’s hard for me to sit there and say that we’re not one of the 12 best teams in the country. When you look at our strength of schedule, when you look at our wins on the road, I think we’re now four and one on the road this year in tough environments. We’re not going and playing in front of 20,000 people on the road like some teams do in this country. We go in front into hostile environments every single week, and our only loss on the road is a two-point loss.”

“You talk about the strength of schedule. I think today is what our fourth top 25 win with, I believe the 12th highest strength of schedule. So I get it. There’s some very deserving teams out there, but if the committee’s job is to pick the 12 best teams, you tell me, you tell me on Selection Sunday, everybody across the country of South Carolina pops up in that bracket. I don’t know of any team that would be excited about having to play this team the way that we’re playing right now.”

On winning all three trophy games

“It means that if our trophy makes it back safely off the field, which I know it’s out there right now, that we’re going to display that proudly in our football facility for the next year. That’s pretty cool to win all three trophy games as well, although we’re still trying to locate the bottom trophy as well, but we’ll just with some there, but we’ll find it. But it’s just a testament to our players as well, to what they’re about, you know. To have the season that we’ve had in 2024, more than anything, I’m just so happy for them because of how they work. And it’s it’s fascinating to me, not fascinating, but it’s pretty cool that Taylor the sideline person for ESPN today, she did our game against Vanderbilt last year. We were 2-6, pouring down rain in the cold, and she did the game. So to look at where we were in 2023, 2-6 to now be 9-3, just beat your rival, have all three trophies. The things that this team’s accomplished so far, they deserve those three trophies because they’re awesome, awesome, awesome young men.”

On Clemson’s offense

“Yeah, just guys making plays. They did make some plays on us in the passing game. They got good receivers. I said it all week that that, you know, they’re in the same offense that we played last year. [Cade] Klubnik is a year older, what a fantastic player he is. That’s what Dabo and I talked about after the game. There’s two great quarterbacks going at it, ours and theirs. And got a ton of respect for Cade, wish him well, Antonio Williams. We know all about Antonio. And then they added Wesco and Moore, 1 and 12, and they’re really good players. And the way we play defense, we play a lot of man coverage like that’s who we are, and our corners are going to be left out here on an island. And I thought Cade made some great throws, and their guys made some great catches and the bigger issue for me was just our inability to affect the quarterback. I mean, they were going to get rid of the ball quick, but with our D line. I mean, credit their offensive line, they did a really good job of protecting for him and allowing him to make those throws.”

On Demetrius Knight Jr.’s interception to end the game

“So happy for D Knight. What a leader he is, what a person he is, what a way for him to finish. You know, every night before we or every year before we play Clemson on Friday night during our team meeting, we have all the seniors get up front and the coaches talk about them. And Luke Day talked about it last night, not just D night, but that senior class in general. Like, that’s the example of what you’re supposed to be about as a student-athlete, just the kind of people they are, the players, and D Knight is right at the top. I’ve told you guys before that. Jeff Collins, the defensive coordinator at North Carolina, told me that D Knight was maybe his favorite player ever of all time, and I see exactly what he means as well.”

On battling back

“Yeah, that’s one thing that we talked about, also, was our guys are battle tested. And you know, Clemson has, outside of I guess Pitt, they really haven’t been in a lot of these four-quarter games. They either got beat or they beat the crap out of people. And we knew that just get it to the fourth quarter, that we are battle tested because of some of the games and environments that we’ve been in, and we’re built for this, and that’s what we talked about, and you saw it out there as well. I told our guys too. It reminded me so much of 2022 we kept having to put our defense out there to get stops, and Kai kept punting and pinning them deep, and then the defense kept going out there and the offense couldn’t finish it. And it was that way a lot today, too. The defense just kept, kept going out there and getting stops.”

On the Gamecocks‘ hot streak

“It goes back to what I said about picking the 12 best teams. I don’t know if there’s a hotter team in America than what we are, six wins in a row, four over ranked opponents on the road for what two of them. This was the first outside of the Alabama loss. This was the first close road game that we’ve had all season, a double-digit win on the road at Vanderbilt, a double-digit win on the road at Kentucky, a double-digit win on the road at Oklahoma, and we’re hot. Our defense continues to get better. Our quarterback, as you guys saw, continues to get better, and that’s what I’d say. We’re just a team that you want to be the team that’s playing your best football at the end of the season. And we sure are all year. And there are moments when you struggle, you hit, turnovers, penalties, all those things.”

On the leadership of this team

“Y’all heard me say it before: your investment level in something equals your expectation level, and our investment level into this program, the young men that are in this program are highly invested. That’s why they all came back. They didn’t come back to go 6-6 and get bowl-eligible. I mean, they came back. I go back to our fair. I haven’t told you guys this, but I go back to our very first team meeting in January. I guess when the players come back, it’s the the night, or Sunday night in January, and that’s the freshmen are there, the new transfers are there. And in the team meeting, I made some comment about the bowl game at the end of the season, and when that meeting was over, Dylan Stewart, of all people who had like been on campus for 48 hours at that point, pulls me aside, and he’s like, enough of this playoff stuff, I mean bowl game stuff, like, we have higher expectations than that going forward. And I remember thinking, ‘Okay, this freshman, he’s different,’ and he is, but that’s the that’s the mindset.”

[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Clemson MBB game]

“And then after we lost to Alabama, I meet with about 18 of our core leaders every Wednesday, and I usually start the meeting like, ‘Okay, what’s on your minds?’ And after we lost Alabama and we were 3-3, sat in there with them, I’m like, ‘Okay, what’s on your minds?’ And I think it was Debo. They all looked right at me, and they said, ‘win out’, and I said, ‘Okay’. And they said, ‘There’s no other option. We’re winning out.’ And I haven’t told you guys that, but that’s been their mindset. And because they they had higher expectations than being 3-3, and I told them, ‘Well, that’s great to say and all, but we gotta start playing winning football better. We gotta quit turning the ball over. We gotta quit having penalties like that’s great to say we’re gonna win out, but we gotta do the things that we have to do in order to win out. And we did now.”

“We turned the ball over today, we lost the turnover margin, which is unbelievable, that we won the game and lost the turnover margin. I think it’s 3-2. We had some disappointing penalties as well, but just a testament to the young man and the leadership we have.”

On ball awareness and the game-winning drive

“I was really just being aware of the clock, knowing that really trying to save we ran in a situation where Josiah got hurt. We didn’t want to put Tree in the game, because if we put Tree [Babalade] in the game, that’s a whole year of eligibility. So I think we moved for Vershon [Lee] to tackle, maybe for a play, put [Ryan] Brubaker in the game, then we have an injury over there. There’s question. They’re telling me in the press box that he caught the ball. The officials are talking to me about, ‘do you want to review it?’ I really didn’t want to burn a time out, because I’m thinking, if we don’t score here, we still have three time outs, and we can get the ball back. So there’s a lot going on, and then we have a dumb penalty, and you’re sitting there inside the four, I think you’re on the 14-yard line, and next thing, and you know you’re 15 yards deeper or whatever. And then just, it’s kind of like the old Doug Collins, the old Chicago Bulls coach. They asked him about what was that play? And it was, get the ball to Michael and get the bleep out of the way. It’s kind of like just get the ball to LaNorris and get out of the way, and that’s what that’s what we did today.”

On enjoying the win

“I wish we were playing in the SEC championship, but we’re not. So we’re going to really look back and enjoy the hell out of this one for a while. I assure you that it’s just a great way to finish.”

“I know what this rivalry means. I said it two years ago. I’m so happy for our fans, because this really is and I told y’all on Tuesday, and I mean it like, this is the best rivalry I truly believe in college athletics. And there’s a lot of great rivalries I’ve been a part of, but this state that I love living in and and the great two great fan bases, what an environment. I mean, I’m so blessed to be in that arena today and have a chance to compete. I mean, it was freaking awesome. And what college athletics is all about, and it says that there’s two great programs in this state, two great teams in this state hate that anybody had to lose that game, but it says that we’ve got a really, really special group of guys that just continue to get better and have more work in front of us to do that.”

On turnovers and environment

“I didn’t realize that, that all three, we did it on a couple of them. I didn’t realize all three turnovers. It’s just, it’s just our defense. It’s a veteran, pretty group of guys, credit Clemson. I mean, it’s disappointing that we, we want, we lost the turnover battle because, I mean, that was a like, you guys, know, I gave the players three keys each week and that I think are going to be critical to this game. And it was one was just like Oklahoma. dominate the turnover battle not just win it, but dominated. We didn’t. But nobody flinched our defense. They talked about putting the ball down and and, and they did it, they just kept competing and battle.”

On LaNorris Sellers’ athleticism

“Yeah, it’s amazing his ability to shed tackles. God blessed that young man with just a lot of just God-given ability genetics, you name it. He’s worked really, really hard in the weight room from when he came in and he’s just, he’s a competitor. He’s just a he’s a winner. Go back to what he did in high school at South Florence, to what he did out there today. He’s special. He’s special.”

On surpassing Coach Spurrier for most wins in four years

“I had a belief in myself. So I don’t want to say that. I didn’t think that I would, but that’s it goes back. It’s, you know, it’s a big game. Like Coach Spurrier actually called me on Tuesday and left me a voicemail, Beamer, you’re doing great. This might be the biggest game ever in the history of Carolina, Clemson and and and whatnot. So, I appreciate him reaching out. I appreciate him giving me an opportunity here at South Carolina, back in 2007. God’s got a unbelievable plan, and they brought us. He brought my wife and I to Columbia in 2007 and with just a dog and no children, and here we are with a dog and three children later, and different dog, but three children later, and and it’s pretty special. I love this place. I’m so blessed to be the head football coach here, and for me to, I have so much respect for Coach Spurrier as a coach for you know, not me, but this team to have won more games in four seasons than than he did. It’s a great accomplishment by everyone associated with our football team.”

Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!