Shane Beamer addresses sacks, battling through injuries on depleted offensive line
After road games, Shane Beamer hops on the plane heading home and opens up his iPad to watch the tape. With Missouri, a game in which Spencer Rattler was sacked six times, he thought he’d immediately find the problem.
At first, he thought it would be a case where the offensive line wasn’t blocking well enough. But it wasn’t exactly that.
“It was not good enough but it was more just every guy had a hand in it. And I shouldn’t say all five. I should say all seven if you count the quarterback, running back, tight end,” Beamer said.
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Beamer addressed certain plays where players just didn’t make the right block. But whether it’s a technique issue or something else, Rattler was hit way too often. And he knows that.
But Beamer also mentioned how thin the offensive line room is right now. As it stands, there are seven linemen out with injuries. That’s without counting Trovon Baugh and Tree Babalade, who are both questionable for Texas A&M.
“We’ve got to help the guys that are in there, because we are so thin, we’ve got to help the five that are in there,” Beamer said. They’re good enough. And we’ve got to help them with with everything and just continue to be better for them.”
With the injuries piling up on the offensive line, Beamer said it’s tough to simulate the physicality that he wants to in practice. It’s something they were able to do down the stretch the last two years but have to be more cautious now.
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There’s even been times where there aren’t enough linemen to fill spots on the scout team. At one point during practice this past week, a backup tight end had to come in and try to simulate Missouri’s right tackle.
“You do the best you can but our defensive ends aren’t really getting better against him. It becomes more of an assignment check if you will, just making sure you’re in the right place, stepping with the right foot and all that stuff,” Beamer said.
“So it affects the defense more when you’re short on a certain position. But again, I’m not going to use that as an excuse. I’m not going to use that as a way to seek comfort where if we don’t play well Saturday in College Station and I’m able to say, ‘Oh, we couldn’t practice like we wanted to.’ No, we have to find a way.”
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Beamer said South Carolina has roughly 119 players on the roster. He compared it to the NFL, where there’s only 53 players on the active roster. But even with half the roster size, they find a way to practice well and play good on Sundays.
“So you’ve got to be creative with what we do,” Beamer said. “And fortunately, like I said, we do a lot of good on good work. But we’ve got to be careful about how much of that we’re doing too because you risk injury and things like that.”
