Everything Shane Beamer said during Sunday teleconference

A day after his South Carolina football program lost a gut-wrenching contest to Florida at home, Shane Beamer addressed the media during his Sunday teleconference.

Following is a transcript of the Gamecocks’ head coach’s remarks:

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BEAMER OPENING STATEMENT:
Obviously, some amazing news that just came out in the recruiting world. So, great day here in our facility from that standpoint and another statement about what’s going on in this program.

Going back to last night, a couple things that certainly I wanted to clarify and address. One was I made a comment about not running pressures and I think that came across as, you know, we’re calling something and guys aren’t running them. That’s not necessarily the case. There were, like I said, times where Florida gave us a formation that we had to adjust to and whether that meant, you know, we got out of the pressure or someone else ran it.

We didn’t do a great job of that, you know, throughout the night. But a bigger issue, we didn’t do a great job of adjusting. Sometimes we did well, we just weren’t consistent enough on adjusting to those pressures or adjusting to their formations. And then when we did run the pressures, I didn’t think our mentality in running the pressure was what it needed to be, if that makes sense. Where, you know, when we call a pressure, like we need to hit it and we need to go and it needs to be very evident that we’re bringing extra people. And I didn’t think we were great at that last night and ultimately that’s on us as coaches, which leads me to the second part.

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I’m certainly aware that much is being made of some of my comments when I was asked about what I saw on defense and I gave specific examples. Anybody that has covered this program and knows me knows that I have always come into those post-game press conferences after a poor performance and saying, you know, something along the lines of I didn’t do a good enough job coaching and ultimately it’s on me and I’m responsible. And that has always been the case and last night was no different. And my frustrations last night were the fact that we were in position to make those plays and we didn’t make them and ultimately that’s on us as coaches for not having our guys, starting with me as the head football coach, not having our guys in, not just in position to make those plays, but getting it done. And that was the frustrating thing because, you know, at the end of the game, offensively and defensively, just technique-wise, we weren’t executing like we needed to, whether it be a pressure on defense on a fourth down where we lose leverage and should get a free hitter on the quarterback and he’s going to be sacked and the game’s going to be over and we lose leverage.

Ultimately, we didn’t do a good enough job as coaches of coaching that during the week on that pressure. And that’s a pressure that we’ve run a million times around here or, you know, we miss a tackle on a pressure on another fourth down that gives them a first down and we didn’t get the tackle. That’s on us as coaches because we didn’t get it coached up enough during the week, starting with me. And then offensively, played, did a lot of really good things yesterday offensively, but you go back to the last three plays before we punted the ball back to them, to me, we lost on those three plays because of not mental errors, but just technique. You know, we don’t, first down, we don’t ID properly and we lose on the backside cutoff. Second down, we run a perimeter play, same one we ran earlier in the game with Legette and we don’t finish on the perimeter from a blocking standpoint. And then third down, we give up a sack because we don’t play with, you know, great technique.

And ultimately, we didn’t make those plays because we, as coaches, starting with me, we didn’t do a good enough job and we did a lot of really good things yesterday. But my frustration, and I told the team, is we just needed to make one more play somewhere on offense, on defense, or on special teams. And we had opportunities in the fourth quarter in all three phases. And if we just make one more play on one of those three phases, we’re all sitting here feeling different right now, today. You know, like I said, four-minute offense, not being able to close the game out was disappointing, I mean, just a crazy deal.

I mean, throw a quick slant and ball deflects off their receiver’s hands, literally right into the other guy’s hands in stride. And, you know, we just got to be better, starting with me, without a doubt. I mean, there were some great individual efforts yesterday on offense, defense, and special teams.

Proud of the way a lot of, proud of the effort our guys played with. You know, defensively, we were out there way too many snaps. Part of that is we got to get ourselves off the field, obviously. But defensively, you know, Jalon Kilgore played 70 plays. Nicky Emmanwori played 80. And then Marcellas Dial and DQ played 86 plays. And the majority of the time, they were out there in man-to-man coverage. And they made some big-time plays in coverage. And certainly, when you’re on an island out there, like we were last night, you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some.

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And we certainly lost some, but we won our share of those, too. So let’s make sure we don’t lose sight of that from a defensive back’s standpoint. And then, like I told the team today, when we call pressures, that means our DBs are out there on an island by themselves. And those pressures, got to get there and get to the quarterback. Proud of the offensive line. Thought they played really well and gave us a chance. We were able to get the run game going. Opened up the passing game, and a lot to build on from yesterday. But in the end, just not good enough.

Injury-wise, I’ll know more later. Stone Blanton, Mario Anderson, and Vershon Lee are the three that we’re most concerned about right now. All three of those guys had some tests done this afternoon. And I’m just waiting to hear the results back. So I’ll have more information for you on Tuesday in regards to those guys.

And then, looking at it as a staff, guys that we felt like played really well and gave us a great opportunity to win the game. Offensively, Mario Anderson, Vershon Lee, Trovon Baugh played his best game. Spencer Rattler and Xavier Legette. And defensively, Tonka Hemingway, he was active. He won his one-on-ones. Did a really nice job. Stone Blanton, we felt like, was in the right place. Played physical. Had some nice third-down stops. And then, Jalon Kilgore in the secondary as well. No coincidence. Every week, we recognize our four student-athletes of the week from an academic standpoint. And Jalon Kilgore was one of them this week. He’s a model student athlete, making all A’s, and playing great on the field, too. And then, special teams-wise, Mitch Jeter.

QUESTION: You mentioned it last night that the guys in the secondary, they’re not young. You know, they played last year and made some big plays last year. After looking at the film, was there something that you saw, a breakdown scheme-wise or just technique-wise, about why they struggled so badly?

BEAMER: No, I don’t think it’s easy, because for you guys and for everybody to point at the secondary and when we’re bringing six people or we’re bringing seven people, you know, we can’t cover all day, and we’ve got to be able to get there and get to the quarterback as well to help those defensive backs out. And certainly, when you play 86 plays, like the majority of those guys did, there’s going to be some losing plays, and we gave up way too many explosives last night.

But, you know, make sure when you guys do your film evaluation, you guys go back and watch some of the one-on-one plays that they did have past breakups on, and when they did play with great leverage and technique, because they had a whole bunch of those as well.

So let’s make sure we don’t lose sight of those when we’re breaking down our film after the game like you guys do. But in regards to the negative plays that they did give up, some of it is technique, whether it’s, you know, folks not playing inside leverage when you’re supposed to be playing inside leverage or outside leverage if you’re outside leverage. You know, it may be a technique at the line of scrimmage when you’re in press. It may be, you know, we were in three-deep coverage one time, and they hit a deep over on us over there towards the student section on Florida’s sideline. And we were in three-deep, and, you know, corner jumped kind of the intermediate route when there was a deep route coming over his head, just, you know, things like that as well. So all fixable, but, you know, to me, That’s the biggest thing is, we brought pressure last night on over 30 of our snaps. And the majority of time we did that, and even when we weren’t bringing pressure, we were playing a lot of man coverage. And you’re gonna win your share, and you’re gonna lose your share. And we didn’t win enough, and we needed just to make one more play in the secondary, or at linebacker, or on the D-line, or anywhere else last night.

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QUESTION: Over the course of the season, that nickel spot seems to be giving y’all a good bit of problem. There’s been a lot of rotation there among starters. I just wonder what you see that’s been the issue with that position?

BEAMER: Well, it’s easy for you guys to say that the nickel position gave us a lot of problems, because Nick was matched up last night in the slot one-on-one against a really good receiver from Florida, and he won some plays. And coming out of the Tennessee game, that nickel position, he played nickel in that game, and he made some pretty good plays in that game as well. So we certainly gotta continue to find ways to help those guys out, whether it be doubling in coverage. And certainly Mississippi State, that’s a game you look back and say that we struggled a little bit in coverage. And that was a different nickel playing that night.

And like I talked about after that game, some of those plays that we gave up against Mississippi State, we should have had some safety help over the top on a lot of those plays as well. But when you’re playing nickel, that guy’s basically a SAM linebacker, so he’s playing coverage, he’s asked to do a lot against the run. With Nick being in there last night, we wanted to be active with him and get him involved in pressures and coverage and run defense, and we did that. So certainly, we’ve played different guys there, and I’ve got full confidence in DQ and Nick both, or Keenan Nelson, or Kajuan Banks, or David Spaulding, or whoever else has been able to get in there. We just gotta coach it better and gotta make more plays for sure.

QUESTION: I wanted to ask about Nyck Harbor and the big catch he had last night. And I think he’s probably played as much or more than he has in a game this season. What have y’all seen from him?

BEAMER: Yeah, he had his best week of practice, the off week, and then this past week, he was very focused. And he earned that with the way that he practiced. And you’re right, he played 29 plays last night, or yesterday afternoon. Played well, we wanted to kind of even out some of those wide receiver reps a little bit and get Nick in there more. And he was out there last night, specifically when we were in 12 personnel, meaning one running back, two tight ends, and two receivers. He was gonna be in that package pretty much every time, and did well.

Played hard, there’s a lot to clean up like everywhere, but he continues to work. And that was a big time play he made, and really happy for him because of how hard he’s worked. And give Spencer some credit too. Spencer does a great job of lifting him up and instilling confidence in him and throwing him balls in practice and having confidence to throw balls to him in the game as well. Hey

QUESTION: Do you foresee Nyck playing more and getting more looks in the passing game and touching the ball and that type of thing?

BEAMER: Yes, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And all those guys, I mean, we wanted to get a lot of those guys in there. We wanted to get Tyshawn Russell in there more last night, and we did. He played eight plays, we wanna get him in the game more. Eddie Lewis didn’t play last night, wanna continue to see him more. But all those guys, without a doubt, we wanna get those guys going. But especially Nyck, because he continues to gain confidence and does a nice job for us. But like all of our players, it’s gonna be, go back to practice and how they perform in practice.

QUESTION: How did Fugar handle the right tackle in your eyes out there when he went in. And also, can you kinda go into depth about the off-week practices and how you and Coach Teasleyy worked in revamping the offensive line? Some of the thought process that went into that, and it certainly looked like they did their job pretty well last night, at least in the running game.

BEAMER: Yeah, in regards to Sidney, I think he was solid. He came in, obviously, when Vershon got hurt. And he’ll be the first to tell you there’s a lot to clean up. Run game wise, I thought he was good. He got in there, I think it was 38 plays is what he played. Protection wise, probably could have been a little bit better from a pass protection standpoint with him, and we’ll get that cleaned up. But he was solid, he’s a guy that continues to work and continues to get better, and gave us a chance when he came in there. As far as the moves, it was really something we had talked about, moving Vershon to tackle a couple weeks ago. But it was one of those, do you wanto to make that change? Because that’s pretty radical to move your start and center to right tackle. And we said, let’s just keep trying to get these guys a little bit better and see how if we can evolve. And then certainly coming out of the Tennessee game, that didn’t happen, and felt like we needed to do something.

So really it was, honestly, we did one-on-ones like we always do, O-line versus D-line, and we had the whole team kinda come together to watch it. And during that period, Trai Jones had some really good one-on-one blocks. And we as coaches just saw him, and Trai’s played football here before. And we had confidence in him, but we just felt like getting him in there gives you a little bit more physicality and a little bit more size. And he and Tro at guard, they move people. And when they pull, they dent people when they pull. And it allowed us, we ran a little bit more gap scheme last night against Florida than we had all year. And that was because of the way those guards continue to evolve. And then again, we’ve got confidence in all those guys. We need to continue to get them all better. We need to get Jaxson Hughes healthy. We need to get Casin Henry healthy. And hopefully, Vershon will be okay, and we can continue to solidify those five guys.

QUESTION: You’ve seen a lot of football and injuries happen. Just how strange is it they all keep happening to the same position, being on the offensive line?

BEAMER: Very, I wish I had an answer for you, Dave, but I don’t. It’s frustrating, it’s nothing you can point your finger at. I mean, it’s just, it’s something we gotta overcome. And certainly, I hope we don’t have anything else. But when you have that many at one position, and it’s all multiple injuries, I’ve been a part of things where you have a rash of hamstrings, or you have a rash of shoulders, or whatever it might be. We’ve obviously had knee injuries, it’s been the primary thing. But we’ve had a little bit of everything, Jakai had a shoulder. And we just gotta overcome it.

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QUESTION: I wanted to ask you about Xzavier McLeod. Notice that he had a real uptick in the volume of snaps that he got against the Florida Gators. What have you in the defensive coaching staff seen from him in practice that led to that on Saturday?

BEAMER: Just consistency. Like all of our guys, practice well, you’re gonna get opportunities. If you don’t practice well, you’re not. And he’s been more consistent, and had a good week of practice. Felt like it was his best week. And he got in there and played, and did some good things. And we wan to continue to be able to get him in there, and get him going.

QUESTION: It seems like that outside zone has kind of evolved into maybe sort of the base of your running game, and kind of stabilize that a little bit. Was that kind of by design, or was that sort of the evolution of a season? What’s kind of working? How the line’s kind of blocked? What the line’s kind of blocking well?

BEAMER: Yeah, I’d say it’s a little bit of both. I mean, we’ve been doing that since the spring time. I mean, we’re primarily an inside zone, outside zone team. It fits our backs well. We’re not the biggest offensive line in the league, that’s for sure. But we’re fairly athletic, so outside zone, you’re able to kind of get people moving. And running backs are able to find creases and seams in there. And then, like I said yesterday, we were able to do a little bit more gap scheme stuff and run the counter, which we’ve done in the past. I mean, that’s nothing new. We just hadn’t really done it this year. We did it a lot last year, obviously, with Jovaughn Gwyn and those guys. Jovaughn was awesome at it, and Trai gave us the ability to do that more yesterday. So we felt like one thing coming out of the bye week is we needed to be a little bit more, not complex, but have a little bit more volume in our run game and make us tougher to defend because of it.

QUESTION: If you guys need to look to another running back, if Mario needs to miss any time, how close do you guys feel like DJ Braswell was to being able to step in and carry a load?

BEAMER: He’s close, yeah. He’s another one that has practiced well and continues to get better. He’s got a good competitive spirit to him and he’s doing a good job in practice. Certainly, those other guys are older and are a little bit ahead of him right now, but I think he’s very close and if for some reason Mario wasn’t able to go, I’d have a lot of confidence and we’d certainly want to get him going, certainly, to give us a third guy if Mario wasn’t able to play.

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