What Shane Beamer said during his Tuesday press conference previewing Ole Miss

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer met with the media on Tuesday to preview his team’s matchup with Ole Miss this weekend. Here’s what he had to say.

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— Thoughts and prayers are out to everyone that has been impacted by Hurricane Helene. The footage he’s seen around the country is devastating. Him and his family were without power until 9:30 last night. Had three trees down in their driveway from the storm.

— The bye week was good. No question they got better. It was good for the guys to get away for a few days. The storm really messed things up from a recruiting standpoint. But that’s okay.

— Ole Miss is very talented and well-coached. They have size in the secondary, athleticism at linebacker, tackles that can take over games. Offensively, they’re pretty much number one in everything. Gotta do a great job handling their tempo. Will be the biggest OL they play this season in terms of height. Big challenge but that’s life in the SEC.

— Injury wise, they’re in pretty good shape.

— Had some conversations with some guys that aren’t playing that don’t have a major role about redshirting. It’s just initial conversations with guys that have a redshirt year. They’ll take it week to week. It’s a possibility with some guys for sure.

— Juice Wells: good football player.

— LaNorris Sellers was good today and did everything in practice.

— Has a ton of respect for Lane Kiffin. They’ve crossed paths before. Had a lot of respect for his dad and that’s something they can relate to with being the sons of coaches.

— They knew they needed to get off to a better start this year after starting slow in other years. This was something he pointed out when it came to Power Four opponents. It’s something they looked at going back to summer conditioning. One thing they did different and got into the weekly game schedule the whole month of August. They’ve treated practices like the regular game week schedule. It allowed for them to get into more of a routine.

— There’s no question they’re better at running the ball and that they need to be creative with how they run the ball. The receiving core continues to step up and make plays. Realizing how they’re going to win football games around here. Need to continue to get better every single week.

— He’s sure Ole Miss will learn from the Kentucky loss. Kentucky’s defense is structured a lot differently than SC’s is. When he watches a game like that, you certainly think about some things Kentucky did. Walked out of that game thinking they knew Kentucky was a good team. Walked out of there saying Ole Miss is a really good team. It was a heck of an SEC football game.

— Rocket looked good today. Jared Brown was also out there today too.

— Knows they’ll get the best version of Ole miss this weekend. And it’s making sure they give Ole Miss their best too. Better not be caught up in one player and prepare well for the whole offense.

[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Ole Miss football game]

— The secondary will have to play well and do a great job tackling. That’s one thing Kentucky did a good job of is making 1-on-1 tackles. That goes for all 11 guys on defense to prevent long gains.

— Has addressed needing to be better playing a whole 60 minutes. How do they do that? Continue to rep it every day in practice. That’s what it takes in these games to win without a doubt.

— Tells the coaches they need to over communicate with the players about what their role is. There should never be any gray area about why a player isn’t playing as much as he wants to. He tells the players to ask any questions they have about their role. It’s also about being honest. They’re not going to overpromise. If anything, they’re going to underpromise and over deliver.

— Gets a lot of comments that recruits’ families love following him on social media. But it certainly depends on the age of them. They’ve been able to do something on social media that reaches all age demographics. Recruits’ families use the word real and genuine when talking about the program.

— Watched a lot of SEC games this weekend. Admittedly did not watch a snap of Mississippi State-Texas.

— Doesn’t think he needs to go down the road of talking about Kentucky beating Ole Miss with his team. But he did. It was a dog fight between those two teams. Told the players they need to have a great respect for how hard it is to win football games. All that matters is Saturday and winning this football team.

— There’s more parity in the SEC. You can change your roster around rather quickly. If you look at Ole Miss, they went out and got more guys in the trenches after last year. They’ve changed their roster around quickly. Ole Miss is a team that can beat anyone in this league.

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