What Shane Beamer said previewing Kentucky
On Tuesday, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media to preview South Carolina’s matchup with Kentucky this weekend. Here’s what he had to say.
[Join GamecockCentral for in-depth Gamecock coverage and The Insiders Forum]
— Wants to thank the fans for last Saturday. Second hottest game on record. It was loud. Gamecock Walk was awesome. Crowd noise was a factor til the end.
— Excited to open up SEC play against Kentucky. Has great respect for Mark Stoops and his program. Followed Wildcat athletics when he was living in Kentucky for 8 years of his life.
— Big challenge on their hands. Kentucky has weapons at receiver, talented offensive line and a great QB. New offensive coordinator but they’re operating at a high level. Kentucky returns 10 starters on defense. It’s essentially the same defense as last year. So they’re really good on defense with arguably the best DT in the conference.
— The way ODU plays defense made it tough to do a lot of things. They take away a lot with what they do schematically. Didn’t do a good enough job of executing. Have to coach better, execute better.
— Sellers is a hell of a quarterback. There’s a lot of pressure on that guy going into Saturday. He’s a really good quarterback. On Friday, he said Sellers didn’t need to be Superman. They’re better around him on offense this year compared to last year from a depth stand point.
— Offense will continue to get better each week. Had a lot of new starters on offense. A lot of new faces around Sellers and they’ll get better throughout the season.
— There was a mix of lack of effort and scheme on the perimeter blocking. There were times where they didn’t go in with the intent and strain they needed to. Mazeo Bennett competed his rear end off in the box on blocking. They need more of that. Sometimes they were in the right place, just didn’t have the right intent to finish through and block.
— The offensive line played really hard. Josiah Thompson didn’t look lost as a freshman starting at left tackle. Vershon Lee was great. Yes, there were some protection issues. But he’s excited about the OL.
— Thought the WR-QB connection looked off. The ball to Nyck Harbor was just a high throw by Sellers. But for the most part, Sellers threw the ball well. They need to be better. They’re continuing to gel as a WR room and trying to do it as fast as they can. They should’ve been better. Told the team there were 88 days til the Clemson game. They have to come together pretty quickly here.
— There was a communication issue/malfunction on the helmet communication on the deep ball from ODU. Having said that, they can’t let that happen. The long QB run for an ODU touchdown was just not being in the right gap.
— It’s concerning to talk about red zone issues after the first game, just like last year. It was a factor in the UNC game, just like it was on Saturday. It comes down to execution. They just need to be better. It’s hard down there in the red zone.
— The big issue is the helmet communication cuts off at 15 seconds and then it comes back on manually for the next play, from what he understands. When you’re playing teams that go really fast, they need the person that turns on the helmet communication manually to do it really fast. But there’s no excuse with that.
[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-LSU football game]
— God blessed Dylan Stewart with a lot of ability. Sterling Lucas has done a great job coaching him up. He brings a lot of speed and physicality. The other 10 players definitely helped out on those plays.
— Doesn’t mind answering the questions during Carolina Calls. Understands why Dabo Swinney won’t be taking live questions anymore. But he’s fine with it and hearing from the fans.
— He was a little surprised with how the passing game turned out. But he didn’t expect them to throw for 400 yards against ODU’s defense. They need to be better because he thought they’d be better on Saturday. But at the same time, he knows what challenges ODU’s styles of defense brings. ODU takes away the ability to throw slants and other short passes. The DBs can drop into coverage from different places.
— Being able to run as a QB is another threat. There’s games where they’ve gone into a game wanting to make a QB pull it and run. Do they want to run Sellers 20-plus times every game? No. But there’s things you can do to present problems for defenses with his skill set.
— Wants to scheme stuff for Harbor. They need to find ways to get the ball in his hands, along with other receivers and running backs. He presents problems for defenses. They need to get him going.
— You just continue to work to get guys to gel and play better, specifically at WR. Everyone needs to be willing to do the unrequired. Stay the course and it’ll come.
