What Shane Beamer said in Tuesday's press conference previewing LSU
South Carolina is off to a 2-0 start for the first time in three seasons. Now, the Gamecocks will get to set to play host to No. 16 LSU on Saturday.
Before then, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media on Tuesday to preview the matchup and more. Here’s what he had to say.
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— Thanks the fans who made the trip to Lexington. Showed the players a picture of the stadium in Kentucky with where the fans would be. There was a big sea of Garnet and Black. Proud to be their head coach.
— Excited for the challenge to face LSU this weekend. Has a ton of respect for Brian Kelly and the success he’s had wherever he’s been. His teams have always been tough, physical, well-disciplined and well-coached.
— Really impressed with LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier. Doesn’t look like a first-time quarterback in college. This will be his first true road start. He’s mature and has been in big environments. Need to make life really difficult.
— Knows it’ll be an amazing environment on Saturday. Already had a bunch of recruits wanting to come to this game before last week. Had to turn recruits away for this game because there were too many wanting to come.
— Having “College GameDay” come is a testament to the fans and what they’re doing here in Columbia. Need to get used to GameDay coming here often.
— Remembers being at Virginia Tech in 1999 when he was a senior and GameDay came to Blacksburg twice. Remembers how big of a deal that was back then. Getting to know the GameDay crew over the years has been cool. Watching GameDay on Saturdays if the team isn’t in meetings or anything like that.
— Had a lot of people interested in coming to the LSU game before they beat Kentucky. A lot of recruits watched and saw many freshmen and younger players getting in the game. Had a lot of recruits telling him they were “balling” in the game. GameDay coming only created more excitement.
— On offense, they need to limit the negative yardage plays. Can’t come out of this game on Saturday having too many. LSU is going to make some plays. But they can’t have them every possession.
— Knows they have to handle success the right way. They need to get used to it. The bandwagon is getting full right now. The key is to keep working and get better. Played really well against Kentucky. They prepared last week to play like they did in the game. They don’t want to get caught up in the spotlight and worry about what they can control.
— Thinks they’re prepared to handle the spotlight. They’ll find out for sure on Saturday. They’ve got a lot of veterans on the team that have been around here for a long time. They’re going to lean on them to set the tone for the team this week. The Kentucky game was huge. But they’re either going to look back and say what it propelled them to the rest of the year or what an opportunity they wasted by drinking all the kool-aid this week instead of getting ready to play a physical game against LSU. Today showed him they’re prepping the right way.
— One thing he likes about this freshmen class with those who are playing, they are very steady and consistent and mature to be young guys. Thinks they’ll be fine.
— Haven’t watched a ton of LSU defense from last year besides seeing personnel. Focused more on how Missouri’s defense looked last year because that’s how they’ll look this week with a new defensive coordinator. They have a lot of confidence in what they’re doing.
[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-LSU football game]
— Doesn’t have any say in who the guest picker should be for GameDay. If he did, he’d let his son, Hunter, get up there and make the picks.
— The run game is nowhere as good as it needs to be. Needs to have positive yardage in his mind. They’re too good on the offensive line to not be able to be more efficient. Likes schematically what they’re doing. Thought there were some runs on Saturday that could’ve been longer runs. They need to be better. Not every play is going to be a 20-30 yard run. But they need to gain more on the ground.
— They’re better on the defensive line this year than they were last year. They didn’t do a good enough job of creating pressure and putting teams behind the chains in 2023. The new personnel has done a great job and need to continue to do so.
— The team needs to focus on what’s important. They don’t need to change because of their preparation. They need to prepare for the same way and not change things up. They need to do what they do to have great prep to play well on Saturday.
— LSU does a good job of mixing things up. They use multiple TEs and shift to throw you off. They’re going to feel extremely confident with their two offensive tackles being able to block their EDGE rushers.
— Thought LaNorris Sellers had a better week of practice throwing the football than he did the week before. Things started getting more and more comfortable for him.
— They need to protect better on some hits Sellers took on Saturday. The play he made on the 32-yard throw to Mazeo Bennett was big. Last year, that’s probably a sack with Spencer Rattler. But with Sellers, he’s able to move around and evade the pressure. He knows where his answers are and where to go with the ball.
