'Scratching the surface': A win to remember for Shane Beamer and South Carolina

There he stood, corner of the end zone, much like he did two years ago. It’d be tough to find anyone happier than Shane Beamer was on Saturday.

In what was a massive game, South Carolina stepped up to the task and delivered a 31-6 win over Kentucky in Lexington. After the team finished singing the alma mater, their Beamer was, hyping up the Gamecock fans who made the trip.

The fourth-year head coach went around and gave high-fives and saluted the fans as much as he could. As he waved his hands in the air to energize the crowd, chants of “Beamer! Beamer Beamer!” broke out. He responded by pumping his fist in the air with a big grin on his face.

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This was the moment. He did it back in 2022, picking up his first signature win over a ranked team, right here in Lexington. And he did it again to kick off SEC play in 2024. But it was also where this journey at South Carolina started for him four short years ago.

“It wasn’t lost on me that this game up here in 2020 was the night Coach (Ray) Tanner called me and said to me after we made small talk for two or three minutes, finally said, ‘Are you ready to do this?’ and offered me the job,” Beamer said, remembering how he was hired at South Carolina when the Gamecocks were at Kentucky in 2020.

“Justin King sent me a text before the game with a picture of the spot that he was standing at in 2020 when he got word, the alert that I’ve been named the head coach at South Carolina. That was a great memory for me and for him. We came up here two years ago and that was a huge win for our program that night. And then to be able to come up here in 2024…it’s a great statement win for our program right now.”

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Since taking over at South Carolina, Beamer is 3-1 against Kentucky. He lost his first bout back in 2021, but since then, he’s 3-0 against the Wildcats.

And in the latest edition, it was all Gamecocks from start to finish. Pure domination. They held a four-point lead at halftime but outscored Kentucky 21-0 in the second half to roll to a 25-point victory.

Beamer knew coming into the week not many thought South Carolina could do what it did on Saturday. After all, it was only one week ago when the Gamecocks narrowly beat Old Dominion, 23-19, in the season opener. So he understood people may doubt his team after that type of performance. But either way, he knew he had the team in place to get this type of win.

“There wasn’t a lot of belief in this program, or in this team, coming in here to be able to do what we just did against a really good team that has a veteran defense. … I told our team on Tuesday that there’s perception and there’s reality. And the reality was, we got a good football team. Reality is that we played really good defense against Old Dominion. Reality is we started three true freshmen on offense last week and a redshirt freshman quarterback and they would continue to get better. Reality is that we’re really good on special teams and we got a big-time punter as we showed today,” Beamer said.

“Ultimately, reality is we got great belief. The 74 young men that came up here, the coaches and staff, this isn’t some surprise. We truly expected to win this football game. Knew it was going to take a lot. Knew it was going to take all of us, all 74, and we were certainly able to get it done.”

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While it’s still early in the new season, South Carolina has been playing much better football. And it’s not just this year. Going back to the end of last season, the Gamecocks won three of their final four games to close out the year. It ended with a season-ending loss to Clemson, but to see that late success carry into 2024 has been promising to Beamer of what this team can do next.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Well, you won the games you were supposed to win. You beat the teams you were supposed to beat.’ Five out of six is still five out of six,” he said. “That’s what excites me as we’re just scratching the surface of how good we can be.”

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