What Shane Beamer said on 107.5 The Game Friday

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer was a guest on 107.5 The Game with Jay Philips and Elijah Campbell this past Friday afternoon when he discussed an array of topics fresh off the SEC meetings in Destin, Fla. and going into the Gamecocks’ first big recruiting weekend of the summer.

Below is a transcript of what Beamer had to say.

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Q: I was pleasantly surprised that Brian Kelly came out after y’all’s coaches meeting and said the wish in the room was to have some kind of Big Ten-SEC challenge. You’ve spoken before about wanting a strong schedule. How refreshing was that from a competitive standpoint and how close might we be to seeing something like this come to fruition?

Shane Beamer: Yeah, it’s hard to say I’ll be honest with you. I know that was one thing, that soundbite or quote, report, whatever that came out of those meetings. We talked about so many different scenarios Jay in regards to future scheduling — eight game conference schedule, nine game conference schedule, alliance with the Big Ten where you scheduled each other.

What does the playoff look like? Is it a 12-team playoff, is it a 14-team playoff, is it a 16-team playoff? Are there five automatic bids with 11 at-larges? Are there four guaranteed spots for the SEC, four for the Big Ten?

I mean we talked about so many different things I don’t know if we’re closer to to any of them but you know certainly we understand that in today, we being the head coach, we understand that in today’s climate that that fans want to see marquee matchups and they want to see attractive non-conference games and we are certainly doing that.

We do that every year as you alluded to with Clemson. We’re doing that this year with Virginia Tech. We’re doing that next year with Miami.

We have, I think, North Carolina and NC State on future schedules and and a lot of schools do in the SEC, so we need to continue to do that and certainly you can’t argue with the success of the SEC and the Big Ten has had over the last five, ten years in college football and and it makes a lot of sense to you know play those guys more often but it wasn’t anything that we talked about you know specifically that you would say anything is imminent coming out of those meetings.

Q: What is the benefit for you as a coach in playing a team like Virginia Tech to start the season, aside from playoff implications?

Beamer: Yeah, I love that. Fans love that and I love that. I think it makes the summers — there’s even more urgency in the summertime, if you will, when you open up with a non-conference opponent, the only game going on Sunday afternoon on national television, it’s going to be awesome.

And it certainly increases the urgency in the summer competition and it’s exciting. Competition is a core value of this program and we want to compete against the best week in week out and certainly that’s an aspect of it.

My dad used to say it all the time, I mean he had openers during his time at Virginia Tech with, opened up with Reggie Bush and Southern Cal one year up in the Redskins stadium. They opened up with Boise State one year, Georgia Tech was a season opener one year. He had a lot of those. Alabama I think twice. So he had a lot of those marquee matchups in opening games. He used to say the same thing, just the excitement it creates in the summertime.

That’s one aspect of it and then certainly with the playoffs you want to play a challenging schedule. Strength of schedule should be a component of what the committee’s looking for. I don’t know how much it was last year in the playoff selections. But it should be a major criteria of the selection committee when it comes to what teams get into the playoff and when you can challenge yourself with a schedule where you play marquee games like that out of conference, it should do nothing but help you if you win them. And if you’re not successful, it’s a good barometer on where you are as a program and kind of where you stand.

Q: Do you think college football would benefit from a ranking system like basketball’s NET or baseball’s RPI?

Beamer: Yeah, no, it was discussed this week. We were using the example of what you just alluded to. We talked about the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this year and how the SEC got so many teams into the tournament and then what it ended up being, I think, seven of the Sweet Six teams were SEC teams, if I’m not mistaken.

They got the bulk of the league in and they followed specific metrics and quad wins and the committee got it right. And you look at, we used the example of baseball with the number of SEC baseball teams that are in the tournament and the metrics that that committee uses. Softball, with I think seven of the top eight teams last weekend for Super Regionals were SEC teams in the softball tournament and they all use different metrics.

So it’s absolutely something that we’ve talked about. It’s something that we talked about this week and we use other sports in this league as examples, without a doubt. So I think there certainly needs to be different metrics, whatever you want to call it, in looking at who the best teams are.

And the SEC released something, I believe, yesterday, just some facts just in regards to strength of schedule and the success that our teams have had across the country over the last five years. And that’s something that we went over in those meetings and Commissioner Sankey said, we’re going to release this to the media in a couple of days. And that’s another aspect of it.

Q: Any update on Rasul Faison’s eligibility for next season?

Beamer: No, we have not. It’s unfortunate. Every time I hear through the grapevine that we should know something in the next day or two, it never happens. And what’s today, Friday, I think Tuesday, I heard we should know something in the next couple of days. And here we are Friday and we’ve heard nothing. So nothing right now.

Our players are back in town working out. I was out watching them today, work out, lift and run. And, you know, the team always gets it together at the end and they break it down on something “123 team” or “123 Gamecocks” or whatever it is. And today they broke it down on “Free ‘Sul” as well. So they’re behind him and he’s here working hard and hoping that we get some closure on this soon.

Q: Have you been given any indication about what’s causing the delay?

Beamer: I really haven’t, you know the NCAA reached out — we’ve given them everything that they’ve asked for since January — they reached back out about two weeks ago I think and asked for just a little bit more information on you know a couple situations with previous schools that we provided to them.

We’ve reached out to his previous stops and gotten all the information and documentation and statements that we need from them, so we’ve given the NCAA everything we haven’t gotten a response on or any other feedback on why we don’t have a final statement yet, no.

Q: How aware is LaNorris Sellers of such an increased spotlight on him and his game?

Beamer: Yeah, I think he’s very aware. But I mean, that goes back to last season and the way the season ended. I said this in an interview earlier this spring, but he got into the season and we went on that 6-game winning streak and you’re kind of in a bubble.

You have your routine—practicing, getting ready for games, going to class. The time off between the Clemson game and the bowl game was probably the first time he was really out of that routine and out in public more. I think that was an eye opener for him, how much his life changed after the regular season ended.

But you’re right, he’s very level-headed and grounded. He’s got great support from his family, and not much bothers him. He doesn’t get too high or too low, but it’d be crazy to think it hasn’t been a change for him. He’s still a young guy, going into his third year of college. It’s not like he’s going into his sixth year here. He’s young in so many ways, so we’ll continue to support and help him. But he’s the same guy he’s always been and he’s really working hard to improve.

Q: Any Beamer family vacations planned?

Beamer: That downtime seems so far off. We just got out of a staff meeting and we’re starting a journey today of 23 straight days of no days off for the coaching staff, because of what we do in June. Whether it’s developing our team, running summer camps for high school and youth, or official recruiting weekends (we have three starting today), it’s busy. Here in about two hours, we’ve got nine guys, their families, and our staff coming to my house for dinner and fun tonight. (Reminder: this interview was conducted last Friday).

It’s a busy 23 days ahead, but once that slows down and we get to July, we’ll get a little time to catch our breath before the season. Nothing too crazy, though. We’re lucky to live in a great state—South Carolina—where you don’t have to go far for the beach or the mountains. We’re going to take a little trip up to Boston after July 4th. I love history, and my son Hunter does too, so we’re going to do a lot of the Revolutionary War stuff and catch a Red Sox game. The girls will do some shopping and whatever else they want, so it’ll be a nice family trip. Otherwise, we’re just taking it easy here in South Carolina.

Q: Will you man the grill tonight?

No, there’ll be no grilling tonight; it’ll be catering here at the house. When you’re talking about nine recruits and their families, that’s a lot of people—about nine times four, plus coaches and staff. That’s too many for one person to man the grill, so we’ll have catering. There’ll also be karaoke later on tonight, I’m sure. We’ll have fun kicking off the official visit weekend.

Q: What’s your go-to karaoke song?

I knew you were going to ask that as soon as I mentioned karaoke. When I break out the karaoke, you can’t go wrong with Sam Hunt’s songs. I’m convinced the reason Markee Anderson and Blake Franks—and whoever else was on that official visit weekend—became Gamecocks was because of my rendition of Sam Hunt’s “Make You Miss Me.” It was really good.

Really the star, believe this or not, the star guy that really gets into the karaoke is Torrian Gray, our defensive backs coach. He’ll be the first one to kick it off tonight. If anyone else gets a chance, it’s only because Torrian takes a break from singing.

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