Shane Beamer provides update on South Carolina's special teams coach hiring
During halftime of the South Carolina men’s basketball game, Shane Beamer met with the media to provide the latest on Gamecock football. That included sharing an update on where USC stands with hiring its next special teams coordinator.
On Saturday, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero first reported that South Carolina is expected to hire longtime NFL special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis. Since the deal isn’t finalized on all ends yet, Beamer wouldn’t specifically mention DeCamillis’ name. However, he did provide an update on where things stand.
“We’re close to being able to announce something but it’s not quite finalized yet,” said Beamer. “I would hope if things continue in the right direction (an announcement will be made) early next week. That would be my hope, for sure.”
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Replacing a coach like Pete Lembo isn’t an easy task. So when I asked Beamer what’s gone into the thought process of filling Lembo’s spot, he admitted that he looked at it from every possible angle.
“For me, one, someone from a special teams standpoint that can makes us even better than what we’ve already been. It kind of goes back to when I first hired Pete. Some people said, ‘Well, you’re a special teams guy, why wouldn’t you do it yourself?’ And I said, well if I think I could hire the best person in the country I would have and I did with Pete. If this thing continues to trend like it looks like it’s going to I feel like we’ve made a grand-slam hire, potentially, with what I was looking for, somebody that could make us better.”
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Beamer also shared that he looked at making himself the special teams coordinator, with his extensive background with coaching special teams.
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“I certainly thought about doing it myself. We had different ways to structure it, whether it be me doing the special teams myself or breaking it up amongst the staff and hiring another defensive coach, hiring another offensive coach. Whatever could make us better from a football standpoint, a recruiting standpoint, offense, defense, I’m looking at everything. In the end, I just felt like — to this point I’ve only interviewed two people for this special teams position. It wasn’t like I was gonna cast a wide net to hire a guy just to hire a guy. It would have to be somebody that I felt was a grand-slam hire and if I was able to do that then I would hire a special teams coach. If not, then I would look at Plan B. But I don’t think we’ll have to do Plan B.”
If Plan A goes the way Beamer expects it to, South Carolina lands one of the best special teams minds in football — not just college. DeCamillis spent this past season as a special assistant to the head coach at the University of Texas. Prior to that, he spent over over 30 years coaching in the NFL including stints running the special teams for the Giants, Falcons, Jaguars, Cowboys, Broncos, and mostly recently the Rams, where he won Super Bowl LVI marking his second Super Bowl title of his coaching career.
DeCamillis is the son-in-law of the late, great Dan Reeves who played quarterback for the Gamecocks before having a long coaching career in the NFL.
