What Shane Beamer said after South Carolina's win over Old Dominion

Following South Carolina’s 23-19 win over Old Dominion on Saturday, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media about the game. Here’s what the fourth-year head coach had to say.

— Much respect to ODU for the way they came in and played. That’s a really good team. The Sun Belt Conference is tough.

— Unacceptable in the way the team performed, starting with him. They’re still celebrating in the locker room. The players have worked too damn hard since January to not do so. Sloppy in all three phases. Did some good, certainly did some bad. Have to coach better without a doubt.

— Going to have to live through some growing pains with starting younger players. Have to line up and execute.

— Proud of the team. Thought they responded well when something went wrong. Referred to the team picking each other up.

— They’ll learn from this game. It was nowhere near good enough. This is a team that’s young and will be much better next week.

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— Emory Floyd and Bryan Thomas Jr. should be fine. Jared Brown should be fine with a lower body injury.

— Don’t want to have to run LaNorris Sellers a ton like they did tonight. They have to be better around him. Carried the ball 56 times. Some were reads, scrambles, called runs for him.

— They’ve got to be better throwing the ball better than they did. But they have to execute better. Had some drops, misreads, etc. Have to coach better in the passing game.

— They’ll get better throwing the football. Played Campbell, Harbor and Jacobs a ton tonight without them going through the spring. They’ll get better. Not an excuse, he says. They’re a work in progress.

— Have to perform better coming out of the lightning delay. Thought they handled it okay. They came out with energy and handled the break well.

— Doesn’t want it to come across that playing the young guys is an excuse. Need to put them in a position to make plays. Told those guys coming out of the half they aren’t freshmen anymore. They’ll get better and learn from it. Thought they beat themselves too much.

— The narrative might be that the OL struggled. The OL played pretty good. Are there some plays they want back? Sure. Perimeter blocking was atrocious. Have to be able to block to be able to run. Nowhere near good enough at that. They did a lot of good things.

— Thought they had a lot of guys on the DL that played a lot of snaps tonight. It was a three-man rotation at DT last year and was five guys tonight. It could’ve been six if needed. Thought they did a good job for the most part. They controlled the line of scrimmage.

— They have more guys that can rush the passer than last year. Dylan Stewart received a game ball for the strip sack he had in the fourth quarter. That was a huge play in the game. Made the mistake not giving Kyle Kennard the game ball at first, but eventually did once T.J. Sanders came up and reminded him.

— If you’re going to play on the outside here, you have to block. Plays could’ve been different if they blocked more at WR and TE.

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— Had some drives where they got deep and set themselves back. Wanted to see what they’d do on the opening kickoff to start the second half. They got three points. Had some nice conversions. Hates they weren’t able to finish with more. They have to finish with touchdowns.

— Helmet communication didn’t have much of an impact in the struggles. That was one of the things they could be better with they want to utilize it. Does believe they can be better there with the communication on offense and defense, there’s no doubt about it.

— Those takeaways were huge, especially late in the game. Their record is “stupid good” when they win the turnover battle. When they run for over 100 yards, their record is pretty good. The number one statistic in football is turnover margin. It was absolutely huge to win in that way. But they shouldn’t have to rely on turnovers to win games.

— The fake field goal was something they saw leading up to the game. The Beamer family knew that would happen on the first kick from the left hash mark. It should have been more open than they thought. Kai Kroeger did a heck of a job making a guy miss. It was something they saw on tape on Monday morning. He went to Joe D and plugged in for what they were going to do. Hate that it came back.

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