Everything Shane Beamer said after South Carolina's loss to Missouri

South Carolina football lost a road contest to Missouri on Saturday. Afterward, head coach Shane Beamer spoke with the media.

Below is a transcript of Beamer’s comments:

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OPENING STATEMENT: Well, obviously a tough day at the office, disappointing start to the game, without a doubt. They’re a good football team, obviously. We knew that coming into the game, but didn’t play great in the first half early with just some self-inflicted things, you know, a dropped pass, a couple of pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball, errant snap on third down

We had plenty of opportunities. We didn’t play well enough in the first half, didn’t coach well enough in the first half, but we had opportunities to make plays and we didn’t get that done. Proud of the way that our guys came out in the second half. I told them at halftime and I just told them in the locker room, you know, the leadership that we saw at halftime, that’s what we need because right now. We’re facing a lot of adversity to say the least. The record’s not where it wants to be and with our injury situation, it’s not ideal. And I told them on Tuesday in our team meeting that when this season’s over, they’re going to look back at people, you guys, people are going to look back at this team and where we are, what we do from this point forward will be a lot of reasons, but it will primarily because of our leadership. And I saw some great, great leadership. Those guys at halftime were upset and frustrated and mad and, and knew that we weren’t playing like South Carolina in the first half and, and love the way they came out in the second half. I love the energy that we played with in the second half, saw some really good signs of football in the second half. We just didn’t make enough of them and you know, against a good team on the road when, when you know, you don’t make enough plays and it’s going to be hard.

Injury-wise, Leggette’s got an upper body injury, don’t know the timeframe on his return. Tree hurt his knee. Don’t know, don’t have an update on that one other than just a knee injury. We’ll see tomorrow when we get back. A.B.’s got a little bit of a hamstring, who else, am I missing anybody else? I think that was the one, but obviously we, you know, could not afford to lose an offensive lineman today and we were down, obviously with Vershon not being here, that was not ideal going into the game against that front and we, we got to do a better job of protecting. We tried, we were chipping, we were max protecting, we were moving the pocket, we’re getting, trying to get the ball of his hands quick. So we knew it was going to be a challenge to block these guys and, and didn’t do a good enough job of that. So questions?

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Q: Shane, you mentioned leadership at the first half. I know they didn’t play well in the first, play better in the second. How did you get that back to play that well in the first half as opposed to having to wait until half time?

BEAMER: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s something starting with me as the head coach. I mean, we were ready to play. That’s the thing. I mean, we had a, I know y’all get tired of me saying this, but we had a fantastic week of practice. We really did to the point where Thursday in practice, we had to scale back a little bit because they had put so much into practice on Tuesday and Wednesday. And these kids care, they care about one another and they care about this football program and they care about the University of South Carolina. And they showed that in the second half. So it wasn’t a lack of not being ready to play. We had a great week of practice. We had great energy at the hotel, great focus, loved the mentality before the game. We just, you know, we kind of got on our heels a little bit, I think, offensively in the first half at the pressure that they were putting on Spencer and, and you know, they hit some plays on us against our defense that, we were in position to make a play and we just didn’t, just didn’t make a play. And so to answer your question, I’ve got to look at how we’re doing things, but I didn’t feel like coming into this game that we weren’t quite ready to play. We were ready to play. We just didn’t make enough plays in the first half, but we need the energy that we played with in the second half. That’s what we got to continue to do going forward.

Hopefully with all the expansion and facility projects they’re doing here, we can maybe find a better post-game press conference room with that new development that they’re doing out here.

Q: (Third and fourth downs)

Yeah, on all of them. The first one that we kicked the field goal on the fourth down in the first quarter, I think that is what it was. We called the timeout because the wind was swirling out there today. And really one minute it’s at your back, the next minute it’s in your face. And initially I was going to punt because the wind was, or punt because the wind was in his face. During the timeout, it kind of flipped. And so that, that was that decision. Yes, Emily, on all of them, I considered going for it because it’s, at some points you need touchdowns, but you also got to do a good job of making plays on third down To get yourself to stay out of fourth down and getting a first and then being able to protect the quarterback as well. And certainly that was a challenge. So when we had an opportunity to, you know, kick field goals and keep it a two score game, I felt like at some point, you know, we would get a turnover on defense.

We had the issue with their errant snap or whatever it was on the punt that we got the ball back. So, you know, I kept feeling like eventually we would, we could get a turnover and I don’t think we had a, I don’t think we had a takeaway today, which is not like us. And it’s hard to win football games when you’re, when you’re not creating takeaways. And but that was, that was my thinking on that one. Just keep keeping it a two score game. The last one down there where I think it was on the three yard line and we kicked the field goal, certainly really thought about that one, but it was, you know, it was one of those that we, I thought we had opportunities on first down, second down, third down and we didn’t get it done, called three pretty good plays we felt like, and just felt like, you know what, let’s just keep, keep hanging in there and keep this thing a two score game and let’s put our defense back out there and go get a stop.

Q: Shane, it’s real easy, obviously, on the outside looking at the standpoint, trying to figure out, okay, what’s going on? And I know you haven’t watched the film yet, but just from talking to Clayton and some of your defensive players at halftime, what was it? Do you think it was some miscommunication in the secondary at times? I know it’s not just on the secondary, but just some of the issues that you think took place in the first half?

BEAMER: Yeah. One, you know, they’ve got really good players. The quarterback is playing at a high level for them. Wease and Burden are great receivers. The running back’s a good running back. The offensive line’s a veteran group, so they’re a very, very efficient offense and they’ve shown that they’re playing really well lately and we knew they were going to make some plays and they did. You know, a couple of them, they, they, they hit us on, were certainly, you know, disappointing. I think it was the first touchdown right down here in this end zone, I mean, we were doubling the guy and we had two guys there and he made a play and, and then the other one, they hit a, I think it was a third down play over there on their sideline on like a little inside fade.

And we were trying to disguise and get into too deep coverage and the safety was just late getting over there. So it wasn’t, you know, we, we, we simplified, not that we were too complex, but we were very, a little bit more, I don’t know if basic is the word, but wanted to settle down and allow our guys defensively to focus on disguises in the back end, disguising the coverages and really emphasize, you know, takeaways and clearly we didn’t do a good enough job of that. Taking the ball away, thought we did a decent job, you know, disguising and, and you know, played aggressive, just didn’t, you know, didn’t make enough plays and got to continue to find ways to get pressure on the quarterback too. And we tried to help our DBs out this week with a little bit more, you know, zone from the time we played a lot of man coverage, like we always do. And we were aggressive.

The third down, we brought a zero blitz, same blitz that we brought last week against Florida that the guy got got out of the pocket and hit Pearsall on the sideline. It was the exact same call. And we hit the quarterback and got a stop on that today. We just didn’t, didn’t get enough pressure on him when we were rushing four or rushing five.

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Q: How tough is Spencer Rattler?

BEAMER: Very. The kid gets the living crap beat out of him out there today as well. And just keep, you know, keeps coming back. So proud is proud as heck of him and, and proud of all of our guys as well, but Spencer’s tough.

But we’ve got a lot of tough players on this team as well, mentally and physically. They showed that today. Yeah. Trying to stop the run. Are those getting better with that last week? Kind of like it took a step back. Is there anything you saw from what they were doing running the ball?

Q: Anything you saw from what they were doing running the ball, as to maybe why the run defense wasn’t as good as it was last week?

BEAMER: No. You know, the kid’s a good player, tough, physical, and I didn’t realize it looks like other than him and the quarterback and the receiver had the carries today, it looks like. So 163 yards and two touchdowns,he’s a load back there to tackle and he certainly broke some tackles. A lot of what we were doing today was based on stopping the run and, and trying to take advantage of, you know, some tendencies and things like that, that we felt like they had going into the game formation wise and in order to stop the run, but clearly we didn’t do a good enough job of knocking them back and, and creating, creating negative plays. Y’all travel safe.

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