South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer joined the Southeastern Conference Wednesday morning. He fielded questions on his team handing expectations, potential weather concerns and his impressions of LSU.
“Excited about the opportunity. We’ve got a big challenge. Ton of respect for coach Kelly and his program, his style of play. One of the best coaches in all of college football and someone that I’m looking forward to seeing on Saturday and competing against. He’s got a great team. Excited about our team. It’s going to be an amazing atmosphere here. College Gameday. Two great teams going at it in front of a sold-out crowd.”
On last week’s win over UK
For our standpoint it was just the next one, the next win. We don’t want to walk off that field shocked by our performance or surprised by what happened. We expected to go up there and play well, and we went up there with great confidence. I think more than anything it’s just been a long eight months here coming off a season we had last year that wasn’t what we wanted. It’s been a long eight months. Our players have worked their butts off since January. So, I think, more than anything, I think it was awesome to see them have success and celebrate a great road win against a really good football team at a place that’s hard to win at. Our players put a lot into that one the way they prepared all offseason and during the week. Excited to see them play and continuing to build on that will be key.
We’ve just got to get better. It’s different around here obviously. Last week I was on this call, and most of you guys were probably wondering how we were going to win three games this season coming off the Old Dominion performance. In y’all’s minds, not ours. And then here we are seven days later, and we got College Gameday coming, and there’s a lot more positive buzz. As I told our players, the bandwagon is getting full. Key for us is to handle success because that’s life in the SEC. You have a great win, and you look up, there’s no breathers in this conference. Every week is a freakin’ battle against a great football team with great players, and this is no different. So, for us, it’s to stay consistent prepare the way that we prepared last week against Kentucky, handle success the right way, and go play well on Saturday.
On preparing for potential wet conditions Saturday…
I think most coaches will probably say the same thing. You do some things like maybe dunking the ball in water. Squirting the guys with water so they get used to rain being on them. I try. if we’re out there in practice, we have an amazing indoor facility, but if it’s a practice where it’s raining, particularly if it’s preseason, if it’s a rainy day and there’s not lightening or thunder or anything, and we’re able to stay outside let’s stay outside and be able to get work in the rain, for sure. So, we’ve been able to get experience from that standpoint. And we talked about it earlier in the week as a staff, be prepared for Saturday from an equipment standpoint, training room standpoint, strength and conditioning, nutrition, all that because who knows what Saturday will entail. And then during the game you obviously, you’re able to get dry balls in there fairly regularly and keep things going in a positive direction from that standpoint so you’re not having soaked balls. Yes, you can do some things but to me it’s never totally like gameday.
On LSU’s roster…
Really impressed with (LSU). Defensively, everyone wants to talk about (Harold) Perkins, and rightfully so. He’s a dynamic player. You look around the rest of the defense, they’ve got athleticism and speed in the secondary and then up front they have size and athleticism. The thing that jumps out defensively is just how hard they play. We knew that. That’s the way Coach Baker’s team played at Missouri so it’s no surprise.
Offensively, everything starts with the offensive line. The two tackles are dynamic. They’ve got a unique skillset at wide receiver, size, speed. Some guys that are a little undersized that have athleticism and speed. Great tight end. Quarterback is playing really well for them, leads the nation in touchdown passes.
And then the running back room. I hate the injury to (John Emery), but they haven’t lacked for recruiting in Baton Rouge, and watching that tape, I like the running backs they have. You’ve got speed guys. You’ve got big, physical bruisers. They kind of got a group of running backs that complement each other well and are really good players.
