Everything Shane Beamer said at Summerville Welcome Home Tour stop

South Carolina head football coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media in Summerville at the Welcome Home Tour stop on Monday. Here’s everything he had to say.

On excitement about being here in Summerville for the Welcome Home Tour

“Yeah, it’s just great to be here in fellowship with so many Gamecocks, especially down here in this area. I love this area in South Carolina, and great to be able to talk Gamecock athletics. Have other coaches here with me, and just hear from the fans about how excited they are about Gamecock athletics, how excited they are about Gamecock football. It helps when you do them coming off of a good season and a season where you beat your rival. That always helps when you come to these things as well.”

Colin Bryant, who’s from the Mount Pleasant area, got put on scholarship recently. What does he mean to your program? And how cool are those videos when you get to tell somebody that they’re on scholarship?

“Yeah, those are special. It’s what it’s all about. You see a lot of things in college athletics now, and you hear what’s wrong about college athletics, stories like Colin’s and stories like other walk-ons. That’s what’s right about college athletics. And Colin has come in and worked really, really hard, has earned everything that he has gotten. So appreciative for the opportunity he has at Carolina and is a really good player for us. He obviously did some really good things for us last year during the season and had earned that scholarship, and excited to see what he does for us in 2025 also.”

Where do you want the expectations for the program to be this season?

“You certainly want high expectations. Our players and the people in our program I believe in embrace those high expectations and understand that with those expectations, you have to prepare the right way, that it doesn’t just happen. Because there’s plenty of teams, and we’ve talked about it a lot as a team, there’s plenty of teams every year that have high expectations and fall well short of those expectations, and it’s usually coming out of the gate as well. So understanding that there’s a lot of expectations, and rightfully so at our place, you want that as a coach, where there are high expectations within the media, with the fan base. But making sure, too, that’s all talk that last year at this time, nobody thought we would win nine games and be in the mix for a playoff spot at the end of the season. This year, we need to make sure we do a great job of not sitting here listening to everybody tell us how good we’re supposed to be and understanding the work that goes into it. But certainly beats the alternative of everybody picking you to be dead last, or anything like that. I like the expectations of being up there higher.”

More on expectations

“Definitely don’t run away from it. I would say, embrace it in that, hey, you know, people, we should be good. I mean, we’ve got a really talented quarterback coming back. We’ve got a really good pass rusher coming back. We’re really young, especially on defense and at wide receiver, but we’ve got talented players. The players that come into our program, they come into this program expecting to win at a high level. So certainly, we embrace that, but you also better embrace the amount of work that it goes into being good. It’s not just talking about it, and then it happens. Preseason expectations are based on, were you pretty good last season and does your quarterback come back? I mean, that’s pretty much what it is every year with people. And nobody thought we’re gonna be any good last year because our quarterback left and we weren’t, from a record standpoint, what we needed to be in 2023. This year, we got a lot of guys coming back. We were good last year. Our quarterback returns. So rightfully so, you’re going to be picked pretty high and but it’s not, I wish it was that simple, but it’s not that simple.”

You guys have obviously added two or three players since you had one of these events previously. What do you think those guys will add to the team? And do you foresee any other guys coming in for the season?

“Possibly. When we went into it, you looked at it, you said, ‘Okay, we’ve got some depth concerns on the offensive line, and we’ve got some depth concerns on the defensive line,’ meaning tackle and defensive end, whether it be injury or transfers. We knew that we needed to address those, particularly from a depth standpoint. So I feel like we have. They add competition to those rooms on the defensive line and on the offensive line. We’ve added older guys with some experience, because we’re still young at a lot of spots, those two specifically.

“And then, in regards to any more before the season, nothing imminent. We had some guys that were in on visits, that haven’t made decisions quite yet, that, you know, there still may be. But right now, I feel really good about where we are. And if we add, you know, one or two guys before the season, great. But if not, that’s okay.”

You’ve said that you wish everybody could play more. Do you have any more thoughts on that?

“No, that’s what it is. There’s only 11 that can be out there at a time. Wish Kam (Pringle) well. I texted him when I saw that he was going to Syracuse, and wished him well and told him good luck. And I hate that. I think you realize that players want to play immediately. Kam was playing a position on the offensive line that takes some time to develop. We’ve got some guys that have come in and played early as freshmen, but that’s a position that, especially in our league, it takes time. And you know, I think Kam looked at it and knew he was going to be behind a handful of guys on our offensive line in 2025 and wasn’t really necessarily wanting to sit and not play and develop for another year with a chance to play in 2026. Wanted to go somewhere and have a chance to play right away and wish him well.

“I don’t want anybody that I sit in their living room and we talk about why I want them to come to South Carolina. I want everyone to come to South Carolina and have a great experience. But I think Kam did have a good experience. But if you get an opportunity to, you know, go play, and you don’t want to, and you don’t see that imminently or imminent at the place you’re at, I get it and wish them well. And that’s what we had with a few guys this year that entered the portal after the spring. Had good, healthy, respectful conversations with them. I understood why they wanted to enter the portal and what the reasons were. And we wish them well.”

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How difficult was it to have exit meetings, not knowing for sure how many people you’d be allowed to have on your roster?

“Difficult. I just literally got off the phone with a college basketball coach in the Big East that was calling and just kind of picking my brain and was like, ‘How are you doing this in football right now as well?’ It was tough. I haven’t cut anyone ever since I’ve been at South Carolina. I know there’s a lot of coaches that talked about, ‘We cut everybody after the season, or we cut everybody in January, or we cut 20 players after spring practice.’ I haven’t told anyone that they don’t have a roster spot because of that, because of the unknown. I mean, it changes all the time, and the last thing I was going to do, and you could have seen that six months ago, you know, and coaches are talking about, it stinks, we had to cut all these people in January, and I’m sitting there saying, why? You don’t even know, this thing hasn’t gone through.

“So my conversations after spring, just to try and be transparent with guys, is I met with all 100, however many players we got on our team, 115, 120, and I told them that, here’s where things are. If we had to be at 105 guys today, you would not be in it. You’d be right on the fence, or you’re in it. And I told everyone that as well, just trying to be transparent. And here’s why you’re where you are right now. I understand if you come back, you’re taking a risk, but we don’t have to be at 105 until, literally, the morning of the Virginia Tech game. We just have to submit our roster. So I told them that competition is everything in our program, and you have the entire summer to train. You can go through preseason practice. And worst case scenario, we get to the first game and you’re not in the 105, that’s the worst case scenario.

“We had some guys that decided to enter the portal to kind of see and and then we had some guys that said, great, you know, thanks for letting me know. But it was, it was tough to answer your question, because there is a lot of unknown, but you don’t know what this thing is going to look like. I didn’t want to cut anybody and have to call them up two weeks later and say, hey, my bad, you still want to come back, you know? So we stayed away from that, but it is a challenge, just because you you’re trying to play in practice right now, and the way we practice, you say, well, there’s no big difference in 105 players and 120 players. Yeah, there is in regard, particularly in preseason, when we try and do a lot of stuff. Y’all seen us practice, where we try and do a lot of stuff on two different fields, where we’ve got 11-on-11 going on one field and we’ve got 11-on-11 going on in the second field. It’s easier to do that if you got 120 players; if you got 105, it’s a little bit dicey. So it’s complicated, but it is what it is, and we’re all dealing with it right now.”

What did you see in the film from the spring game now that you’ve had a few weeks to look back at it?

“Couple busted coverages on defense that allowed long pass plays. Credit the offense for connecting on those long pass plays, but also disappointing that we busted a couple coverages and gave up explosives. But overall, it was kind of what I thought. There were some guys that stepped up and some guys that certainly made some plays that night. That was good to see. I went back and watched it all a couple of times afterwards and was pleased with what I saw that night. That was a good night and a good way for us to finish the spring.”

With Nyck Harbor having gone through his first full spring since he came to South Carolina, what do you feel like that kind of did for him now that you’ve had the full spring to evaluate that? And was there anything in particular you noticed about strides he made, or anything that looked different?

“He’s so much farther along. Credit him and credit Mike Furrey for how he’s poured into him. Nyck works really, really hard. You guys have heard me talk about that. I mean, even on our off days during the season, our off days are Mondays, and he’s in there every Monday, just running routes and working on his technique. And that’s really, I would say, just his route running and releases off the line of scrimmage. He’s so much more polished.

“I can’t remember if I told you guys or not. I apologize if I did, but he caught a ball in one of our scrimmages, or in practice, that was a similar route to a ball he caught against Illinois in the bowl game in the fourth quarter, over on Illinois’ sideline. It was like an outbreak route. I’m sick in the head. I was watching the TV copy of the Illinois game back during spring ball, just because I’m sick. And I watched him because, literally, that same day, he had made the catch in practice, and it was a similar route. I texted him like I saw the TV copy of that play against Illinois in the bowl game, and then you ran a similar route in practice today. It’s just night and day. Just the details of the position, the way that he’s able to get off the line of scrimmage, his burst coming off the line, the way he’s able to sink his hips, get out of breaks. He just looks so much more natural and comfortable. And he’s got a ways to go, and he’ll be the first to tell you. But as far as the just, I think just the general like techniques and fundamentals of the position, is what he’s really improved at.”

Of those transfers who are still deciding, do any of them happen to play kicker?

“No. Joe DeCamillis and I sat down after spring practice and said, you know what? We don’t feel like there’s any kicker in the portal right now that, frankly, is better than what we have. We’ve got a lot of confidence in Mason (Love), whatever his role ends up being, William Joyce, Peyton Argent, Max Kelley coming in that they’re unproven. And that’s certainly concerning as you go into a game or go into a season with potentially a kicker and a punter that have not potentially — you will — a kicker and a punter that have never kicked in a big game like that as well.

“But that’s our job as coaches. We’ve got to develop these guys and get them from a mental and physical standpoint, where they can go out there and perform. And we talked about it, like I said, after the spring. But as far as guys that were in the portal, we watched them. And there’s some good kickers and punters, don’t get me wrong. But in the portal, there’s no one that we looked at and just said, you know, that guy’s absolutely better than what we have. And I didn’t want to bring in somebody just to muddy the waters, just because they were an older guy.”

Any answer on Rahsul Faison yet with his eligibility for this season?

“No, it’s getting frustrating to be completely frank. I understand the NCAA has a lot on their plate. The fact that they have had everything they needed from us since January and we don’t have an answer is, frankly, disappointing. We’ve given them everything they needed. Back in January, they asked for more. We gave them what they needed. They asked for more. We gave them what they needed. We’ve been in contact with other schools he was at to get stuff from them that they needed. Again, I know they have a lot on their plate. But the fact that we’re now in the middle of May and still don’t have an answer, and we just went through a portal window where we didn’t add a running back, but we don’t know if we will have an answer on whether or not we’re going to have three scholarship running backs, four or five, whatever it is. That’s tough when you start talking about planning for 2025.”

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