South Carolina begins 'mock game week'

This time next week, it will be real.

As South Carolina’s season opener draws ever closer, the Gamecocks ended the “camp” portion of the preseason with a second and final scrimmage on Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium.

Now, class will start back, specific NCAA limits will kick in for the amount of mandatory time a student-athlete can spend on their sport, and the Gamecocks will participate in one final week of preparation before it’s officially “game week.”

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“(Sunday) starts our mock game week, where we’ll go through the exact schedule that we’ll do when we play Old Dominion,” head coach Shane Beamer said Saturday night. “We’ll go through that this week, so our guys can get a feel for what a game week is like in this program, especially since we have a lot of new players.”

The start of the season is still 13 days away but for South Carolina and teams around the country, the opportunity for preseason activities will soon end as each game week represents a sprint against time to correct issues from the week before and to prepare for a future opponent.

With so many new players set to debut this season, Beamer wants next week to feel comfortable — which means getting into a routine this week.

“(Today) is like a normal in-season Sunday; we won’t practice but will come in to watch the tape, meet, and lift,” Beamer continued. “Monday will be their NCAA-required mandatory day off, as we always take Mondays off during the season. On Tuesday, I’ll have the opportunity to visit with these (media) guys, hold a press conference.

“And we’ll practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then, we’ll be at Carolina Calls on Thursday night at Backstreet’s Grill for the first call-in show of the year, and I hope to see you guys there. Friday will be a normal Friday, and we’ll give our guys Saturday off next weekend to get away for a day or so and then we’ll come back in a week from Sunday, into game week, ready to roll.”

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The mock game week is nothing new for Beamer, though the exact execution of it has been tweaked since his first year in Columbia.

While this year’s group will get Saturday, exactly one week before the opener, off from practice, Beamer’s first team had to practice on that day on the calendar.

“I remember Jabari (Ellis) coming into my office, saying, ‘I’m not going to be here next year, but maybe next year’ — here’s something I’ve learned — ‘Maybe next year, this Saturday before the first game, which is really the last time we’re going to have a day off before the off week, it’d be nice if you gave the guys Saturday off so they could go home if they wanted to and then come back on Sunday,'” Beamer recalled.

And that’s exactly what they did.

“I thought, you’re exactly right; coaches are tired, players are tired, so that’s what we started doing. So (yesterday), we do it kind of like the NFL back when they played four preseason games—the third preseason game would always be the one where the starters play the most, then they got a week off, and then they go play.

“So that’s what we’re doing. We’ll do a physical, regular practice Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, which will be the situational practice, and then we’ll be done by six o’clock on Friday evening. The players will be off Friday night, all day Saturday, Sunday morning, and then back in here on Sunday.”

And then it will be go time.

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