Things got heated in Citrus Bowl. Beamer and Bielema break down what happened

After walking over to check on an injured player, Illinois head coach Bret Bielema looked over towards South Carolina’s sideline. He then stuck his arms out, mimicking an apparent signaling of substitution.

Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer took exception to this, running onto the field in an angry manner. Sure, the fourth-year coach had shown plenty of emotion before, but this was about as fired up as he’s ever been.

All game long, Illinois had been subbing players in and out late in the play clock, which was something Beamer had some issues with in South Carolina’s 21-17 loss in the Citrus Bowl. Only that wasn’t really what the whole situation with Bielema throwing his arms up was about.

“It’s heated and competitive out there, but in all my years of being around football, I’ve never seen an opposing head coach come over to the opposing team’s sideline and basically make a gesture towards the opposing head coach,” Beamer said after the game.

“I think he was upset about something that we did on the kickoff return in regards to Juju (McDowell) on the throwback to Nyck Harbor. I would say he needs to check the rule book, because that’s something that we cleared with the officials before the game. Disappointing.”

Moments earlier before the fiasco ensued, McDowell put his arms in the air, which usually means the ball is going over his head and he’ll take the touchback on a kickoff return. But in this instance, McDowell caught Illinois off guard by making the gesture then throwing the ball across to the other side of the home end zone. Nyck Harbor, awaiting McDowell’s pass, then ran out of the end zone for 25 yards, which would’ve been the same amount of yardage had the Gamecocks taken the touchback.

[Join GamecockCentral: $1 for 7 days]

When Bielema initially saw this, he was under the impression it meant South Carolina was not going to return the kickoff. But when he saw the play unfold, that’s where he had a problem with it. At the same time, though, he recognized that the Gamecocks didn’t necessarily do anything wrong.

“The reason we do that and I first got aware of it was in the NFL was kickoff and kickoff return is the highest percentage of injury in the sport,” Bielema said. “They didn’t do anything illegal, but it put us in a position that we now — the ethic of what that is got evaporated there, because our kids stop.

“So when you’re a kickoff return unit, if I’m running at you and the kickoff returner back there, the guy blocking me, he doesn’t know what’s going on so he’s going to begin to engage you and we see somebody do that before the whistles are blown, you can stop, decelerate, and you don’t have these massive collisions.”

Bielema also made it clear he didn’t make the gesture directly at Beamer when he was over near their sideline. As he put it, he did it “at their whole damn sideline.”

“Listen, I love Shane. He’s a good person,” Bielema said. “I wasn’t going personally at him. I did it at their whole sideline. I wanted them to understand that I know what just happened.”

Tensions felt high for the rest of the game on both sides. But even with everything that had happened, both Beamer and Bielema met at midfield to greet each other after the game. They shook hands, said a few words to each other, then parted ways.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for him,” Beamer said of Bielema. “He’s obviously done this for a long time, but in all my years of coaching I’ve never seen that happen. An opposing coach come over, while his player is hurt and, basically, have something to say to the opposing head coach. I’ve got my own team to worry about. We weren’t good enough today.”

Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!