Shane Beamer: Outside pressure won't affect Spencer Rattler
It’s not easy walking into a new place like South Carolina as a former top 10 player nationally with plenty to prove.
Spencer Rattler is tasked with doing that this year with the Gamecocks and with it there will certainly be some outside pressure on him.
But internally? Shane Beamer doesn’t think it’s anything Rattler can’t handle.
“I don’t worry about Spencer. There may be some outside pressure with him. He’s been through the fire before. I saw firsthand how he handled it when he was at Oklahoma and started out 0-2,” Beamer said.
“Never flinched. Continued to get better. There will be some ups, certainly some downs this season. But I have no worry about him from that standpoint and being able to handle it.”
[SUBSCRIBE: Get four months of Gamecock Central for $1!]
Rattler faced his fair share of adversity and challenge before enrolling at South Carolina.
He was the successor at quarterback, tasked with becoming the fourth straight Oklahoma quarterback to finish as a Heisman finalist.
Things got off to a rocky start early with a couple of losses but Rattler responded, leading Oklahoma to eight straight wins to end the year with a Big 12 and Cotton Bowl titles.
Rattler ended the year completing 67.6 percent of his passes and averaging 9.6 yards per attempt.
Last season he played in nine games while Caleb Williams turned into the eventual starter. He averaged 7.9 yards per attempt and completed almost 75 percent of his passes.
“The narrative I know was he got benched last year in the Texas game. He got sat down the year before, too,” Beamer said. “Then he came back in the second half, played his butt off, beat Texas in four overtimes and he never lost a game as a starting quarterback again, and still hasn’t as a starting quarterback.”
Top 10
- 1Hot
Ben Herbstreit
Kirk Herbstreit asks for prayers
- 2
USC makes QB change
Trojans to start Jayden Maiava
- 3Trending
Dabo denied vote
'They done voted me out of the state'
- 4
Dana Holgorsen is back
Former Houston, WVU coach joins Nebraska staff
- 5
Couching Carousel
Intel on potential head coaching moves
He’ll be tasked with helping the Gamecocks bounce back after a very inconsistent 2021.
But, Beamer has reiterated, it won’t be all piled onto Rattler’s shoulders.
“We have to be great around Spencer, players and coaches, play well and help him,” he said. “With Spencer, nobody is asking him to go out there and be Superman, just go be you, and confident that he will.”
[Win a Jaheim Bell-autographed football]
On3 consensus considered Rattler the No. 15 recruit in the country out of high school and the top-ranked quarterback for his class.
He’s one of a few additions to a revamped quarterback room that includes Rattler, Luke Doty, Colten Gauthier and a pair of freshmen in Tanner Bailey and Braden Davis.
It certainly makes a difference. If anything, it’s the experience and the depth that we now have in that room compared to last year. Going into last season, Luke Doty was our starting quarterback, and he’d only been on campus for a year,” Beamer said.
“It’s a different quarterback room. Certainly, we have a lot of work to do, but certainly, as a coach it makes you feel better about the situation going into the season.”
South Carolina and Rattler will begin their season on Sept. 3 at home against Georgia State. The Gamecocks then hit the road for a game at Arkansas before returning home to play Georgia.
