Shane Beamer talks bye-week tweaks in all three phases

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer naturally does not want to talk about what changes he and his staff may make during the bye week until after the Gamecocks take on Florida.

But Beamer did strongly insinuate during his appearance on the SEC teleconference this week that some changes could be coming when the Gamecocks face the Gators next week.

“You look back schematically, are we doing the things we need to be doing in all three phases?” Beamer said. “Is it maybe schematically something we want to do that we just don’t have the personnel quite for right now? So we’ve done that in all three phases.”

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South Carolina used an abbreviated schedule this week, holding practices on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, while also trying to stay close to a game-week routine — with the benefit of allowing the players to have the rest of the week off from a football standpoint.

Three extra practices and some extra scouting work isn’t enough time to make wholesale changes, but it does offer a brief reprieve for banged-up players to get healthier and for coaches to make deeper tweaks or personnel changes than they maybe would during a regular game week.

And just the fact that Beamer doesn’t want to talk about the changes yet means they could be at least significant enough to potentially affect the game plan next week.

“You look at personnel, are there some guys that maybe haven’t been playing that can help us?” Beamer continued. “This is a week to get them opportunities to see what they can do. Are there guys that have been playing that maybe would be better suited to play somewhere different at that position? Those are things you look at and really just get back to work.

“I would say there’s been a lot of things in all three phases, so I’ll wait until after the Florida game to talk more specifically about those things, but certainly feel like we’ve gotten better as a team during these three days and really appreciate the effort and energy that our players have practiced with the last three days. They’ve been fantastic and have a great eagerness and desire to improve.”

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During Beamer’s first two seasons at South Carolina, the Gamecocks have largely been good in the latter parts of the season, using the year to dial in on what they do best.

That helped lead to late-season (and bowl game) wins over Florida, Auburn and North Carolina in 2021 followed by end-of-year victories over Tennessee and Clemson in 2022.

It’s something the 2-3 Gamecocks will look to repeat this year as they used the break for some additional self-scouting.

“It’s critical (to self-scout), and it’s something that we try and do each week, not just wait until the open week,” Beamer said. “I mean, every game we’re trying to break tendencies, whether it be how we line up to punt the ball, our team is getting a bead on anything that we’re doing defensively, what we’re doing offensively with formations or play calling, whatever it might be,” Beamer said.

“So we look at that every single week from a self-scout standpoint. But when you have the open week, you have more time to really dive into that, any tendencies that you might have. But then two, how we’re going to continue to get ourselves better schematically, personnel, all the things along those lines.”

South Carolina returns to action next week with a 3:30 kickoff against Florida at Williams-Brice Stadium.

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