Shane Beamer's biggest takeaways from South Carolina's second spring scrimmage
South Carolina went through its second spring scrimmage at Williams-Brice Stadium this past Saturday. With the Garnet & Black Spring Game days away, head coach Shane Beamer was happy with the progress being made, specifically on offense.
“The offense I thought played with more energy in the second scrimmage, more competitive spirit,” Beamer said on Tuesday. “I think the first time you got a lot of new guys on offense, and they’re kind of feeling their way through and don’t quite know what to expect. They were more, they started faster, I should say, offensively in the scrimmage. I thought that was successful.”
Normally, in these scrimmages, almost everything is live, aside from hitting the quarterbacks. That changed on Saturday, though. Beamer said players were able to hit and tackle any quarterback not named LaNorris Sellers, who will enter his second year as the starter under center.
This forced the quarterbacks, like Air Noland, Dante Reno and Cutter Woods, to get the ball out quicker. Even with this being the main change from the first scrimmage, it didn’t sound like it affected their ability to move the ball down the field.
“They’ve gotten better. Want to see just who steps up and can make plays, and just take another step and get better,” Beamer said. “But that’s a very, very even competition right now in a lot of ways.”
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Beamer noted that the offense had some longer plays to get into scoring position. At the same time, he also pointed out that the defense responded well to adversity in these situations.
“As a head coach, it stinks, because every positive thing I say can also be construed as a negative. But offensively, they didn’t turn the ball over any on Saturday, and that’s really good,” Beamer said. “Now, from a defensive standpoint, it’s not so good because we’ve always been good at taking the ball away. … To have a 74-play scrimmage, not turn the ball over, that was a positive. Some short-yardage stops that our defense had on 3rd and 1, 4th and 1. That was good to see as well.”
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With the players being more comfortable in a scrimmage setting, Beamer saw many take a step forward. He specifically liked seeing the younger players at wide receiver and defensive back not only go up against each other but also get better in the process of doing so. That went for other position groups as well.
“You see older guys that, whether it be Gabe Brownlow-Dindy or Monkell Goodwine or Rondo Porter or Nick Barrett, that just made more plays on the defensive line Saturday than they did the previous Saturday,” Beamer said. “So I walked off the field excited because of the competitive spirit and knowing that we took a step, really, at every position.”
After introducing short-yardage situations in practice earlier this month, the team closed out the scrimmage with a goal-line period. This left Beamer feeling good about everything he had seen.
“I like the way that we finished. We always try and finish up our scrimmages with just a goal-line period where we just put the ball down on the two-yard line and just go at it for six plays,” he said. “It was good to see the way that both sides were good, if you will, in the fourth quarter at the very end, the spirit and competitiveness they played with.”
