Shane Beamer says he's sent in 'quite a few' plays for further clarification to the SEC league office. Here's why
Through the first two weeks of the season, Shane Beamer admitted he hadn’t sent in any plays to be examined further to the SEC league office. But after Saturday’s loss to LSU, that certainly has changed.
After a game in which South Carolina racked up a season-high 13 penalties, Beamer called John McDaid, the SEC coordinator of football officials, to start the process of getting some clarity on what he saw on Saturday.
“I know Coach (Ray) Tanner’s had some conversations today with the league office, as well,” Beamer said during his Sunday teleconference. “But we’re not going to sit around and complain about that. It’s moving onto next week. Certainly want to get some clarification on some things from yesterday, for sure.”
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According to the SEC, the league analyzes “every call by each official during every game” with a “team of experienced position evaluators.” There’s both an in-game and postgame video evaluation process conducted.
Beamer understood some of the calls made against the Gamecocks were fair and warranted. At the same time, though, he saw flags thrown for things that he had “never seen in 25 years of coaching.”
“A lot of the plays I send in I either have a question about like, what did you see or explain this rule to me better,” Beamer said. “We have sent in quite a few today. And that process is just me going through the tape and essentially just writing it down, the play number and what my question is or comment is and then giving it to George Wynn, our director of football operations, and he submits it. … I’m sure there’s a lot of calls that LSU sent in that they were unhappy about. So there’s some interesting things.”
As a whole, the officiating crew from the LSU-South Carolina game called 22 penalties for a total of 198 yards. However, Beamer felt the officials missed another call that happened after time expired.
With five seconds left to play, the Gamecocks lined up to attempt a game-tying 49-yard field goal. But sixth-year kicker Alex Herrera missed as his kick barely hooked to the left of the upright.
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After Herrera’s miss, Beamer noticed there were potential flags that should’ve been thrown, at least in his opinion.
“This isn’t sour grapes or Shane’s complaining, but I’ve been told that this year in the SEC that celebrations are going to be allowed. I watched games the first weekend and I see some guys doing celebrations in the end zone. That’s great, let these guys have fun. But I was told celebrations were going to be allowed a little bit. But there’s going to be a very clear emphasis on taunting,” Beamer said.
“For that crew yesterday to throw 22 flags, and on the last play of the game, I think there’s two very clear instances of taunting that happened after the kick. And after throwing 22 flags, no one decided to throw a flag on that one.”
Ultimately, though, Beamer made it a point that the officials weren’t the reason why South Carolina lost on Saturday. There were other factors or things the team did during the game that led to the final outcome.
“The thing I’ve talked to (the players) about is that a lot of the things where we’ve got to be better, the officials did not cause us to jump offsides twice. The officials did not cause us to lose leverage on a zero blitz and give up a completion. The officials didn’t cause us to miss some tackles. The officials didn’t cause us, offensively, to have a false start for not being set before the snap. And the officials didn’t cause us to fumble wherever it was, I think it was four times yesterday,” Beamer said.
“So we need to look at ourselves. We’re not going to seek comfort by looking at the officials. So that’s how we’ve handled it, as well. I’ve got to coach better, I’ve got to continue to put these guys in positions to make plays, there’s no doubt about it.”
