What Shane Beamer said in the main room at SEC Media Days on Monday

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer met with the media Monday at SEC Media Days to discuss a handful of topics ahead of the 2024 season.

Below is a quick summary of what Beamer had to say in the main room.

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– Beamer sends his thoughts and prayers to Lane Kiffin and the Kiffin family with the recent passing of Lane’s father

– Is excited for the three players who they brought today to SEC Media Days to represent South Carolina. Mentions how all three are already graduates of the university

– Mentions how Debo Williams was one of the first players that Beamer’s staff recruited when he became head coach of USC. Williams transferred in from Delaware in 2021.

– Need to run the ball better and protect the QB better.

– Started three true freshmen last season, including two on the offensive line but believes they’ll be better because of it. “We’re young, we’re talented, and we’re hungry.” The key will be how quickly they come together

– Defensively they need to force more takeaways. While they struggled to do that last year at times, Beamer points out how they’ve forced more takeaways than any team in the SEC since 2021

– The top six vote-getters for defensive MVP, an award the team votes on at the end of the year, are all back this season. That starts with Williams who won the award

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– Need to continue to be aggressive on special teams. Mentions how they’ve led FBS in blocked kicks since he arrived in 2021 (14)

– Mentions how the 2023 signing class was the highest recruiting class South Carolina has had in the past decade. Says that the 2022 and 2023 classes were the two best consecutive classes since 2012-13

– Says he loves what he does and he’s passionate about coaching at the University of South Carolina

– “We have a championship mindset… our expectations are to compete to make the 12-team college football playoff.” Says they have players who have either stayed or have come in, as well as coaches, not just to be average.

– Beamer “I really, really, really like our football team.” Says he knows a lot of people on the outside might not see it that way and he expects USC to be picked towards the bottom of the conference.

– Beamer calls it an opportunity to “get to play,” the schedule they have. Knows in this conference everyone has a tough schedule

– Asked about returning to play at Oklahoma. Says it’ll be a work trip but his family is excited about it. It’ll be a big challenge but he’s excited for Gamecock Nation because he knows they’re looking forward to it

– They’re gonna look different at QB because both Sellers and Ashford have the ability to not only throw the football but they can run the ball as well

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– They’re returning a lot of players around the QB position, starting with players on the OL. They have a young, talented, and hungry group

– Size and depth on the OL is the biggest difference when you play in the SEC

– Can’t worry about the additions of Texas and Oklahoma or any other team in the conference. Said he’s focused on what they have to do to get better. Doesn’t believe they’re as far off as some people on the outside think they are

– Going 5-7 last year isn’t what they expected last year. But he also believes they weren’t too far away from that narrative being completely different. They’ve made changes this offseason, both with changes to the coaching staff and to personnel with the transfer portal, to help them get over that hump. At the end of the day though, he says it falls back on him. Knows that they can’t just talk about it, they have to do it.

– Mentions that Rocket Sanders is hungry to get back to being the Rocket Sanders this league remembers him to be. He’s been working “really, really hard” to get healthy. He’s down 6% of body fat since Feb. and stayed in May to put extra work in.

– Asked if he’s putting more stock in transfers or high school players. Said it starts with high school players and they never want to get away from that but will take advantage of the portal if it can help them. Brings up again that it’s been the best two-year span of recruiting for this program, rankings-wise, since 2012.

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