Shane Beamer Sunday night conference call full transcript

South Carolina AD for Communications and PR Michael Debates recently informed the media that the audio of Shane Beamer’s Sunday conference call could no longer be made available to the public. In lieu of that, here’s the full transcript of Beamer’s media session Sunday afternoon following the loss at Alabama:

Beamer:

Watching the tape on the plane last night, kind of what I knew it would be. Too inconsistent, the way our defense played in the first quarter versus the third quarter. First quarter giving up way too many explosives. First quarter, we played pretty well, other than not being able to finish drives in the red zone, and then we get out in the third quarter where our defense is playing pretty good football, and we don’t play well offensively. So got to be more consistent. Some good that we take from last night. Protection on the offensive line I thought, was really solid. To be able to line up and run the ball for 216 yards against a team that was #5 in the nation in rush defense. Something for us to continue to build up on. But as I said postgame to you guys, when you don’t finish drives in the red zone, when you don’t have any takeaways of your own on defense and special teams, and you turn the ball over on offense, it’s hard. And then you combine the explosives. I mean, we had explosives on offense. We had seven by our count, but they had 10, and they were significant explosive gains when you get up in the 40s and the 70s, which is what some of those plays were. So not good enough. Not good enough at all. We know that. And we need to be a whole lot better. Injury-wise, I think all the guys that were not available, and Sean Murphy was available, but played one play; I didn’t think he was going to be able to go after that. I think he should be okay. Kelby Collins had a significant injury during the game where he got really poked in the eye, but they were concerned that there was some more significant damage. to his actual face. So he actually left and went to a local hospital in Tuscaloosa during the game to get some more work and tests done. Everything came back okay. He flew back with us last night and has a meeting with an ophthalmologist today. So hopefully he’ll be okay going forward. Another update in regards to Dylan Stewart. Dylan is suspended from our football team indefinitely. I’ll make the decision on what his future looks like beyond this week here in the next day or so. Still having some meetings and talking with him. But he won’t play this week versus Kentucky. There’s a standard of how we do things in this program, and that was not it last night. And it’s beyond the punch; the punch is unacceptable. He’s not the first person to ever, unfortunately, throw a punch in a football game, and he won’t be the last. But it’s some of the other stuff that isn’t how we do things in this program. And accountability is a core value of this program, and we are all accountable to the standard. So we’ll see what that looks like here going forward.

Question:

Hey Shane, you’ve said a lot after some losses over the years that you’ve had great weeks of practices and then maybe the games don’t go so well. What is it that’s not translating from those great practices to the games in those occasions?

Beamer:

Yeah, good question. You know, it’s just, it’s a lot of execution things, David, that I see us do in practice and then for whatever reason, we get out in the game, and it’s not as clean and executed as well as what it needs to be. So it’s on the players to execute and go make plays. And it’s on us as coaches to continue to put them in positions to make those plays and execute the scheme. We’ve been running this system on defense for six years now, and you always evolve, but the nuts and bolts of this defense have not changed. And there’s some base things that we’re making some mistakes on right now. So we all got to be better.

Question:

Hey, Shane, with the struggles in the secondary, what’s the latest on Ethan Johnson? I noticed he hasn’t played the last couple of games, even though he’s been on the dress list for you guys.

Beamer:

Yeah, Ethan’s there. He’s available. He’s continuing to learn what to do and to where we feel comfortable playing him. You know, it’s easy to look at the secondary and say we need to get Ethan out there. Well, Ethan plays corner, Jack, and Judge Collier and Vicari Swain played at a pretty high level last night and played their butts off, to be honest with you. And you know, those explosives last night, we had a couple busts at the safety position. We had a bust at the nickel position. Some of those are, we can’t cover all day. And at some point, the pass rush has to hit the quarterback and get him on the ground. And we’ve got to do a good job in scramble situations in the secondary of being able to latch on to receivers and tight ends. But Ethan’s coming along. We feel very comfortable playing him. But last night, Judge and Vicari took all the reps at corner.

Question:

Shane, some of the other stuff you alluded to with Dylan, was it all just stuff related to the game last night? Are there any other details that you can share about what some of that other stuff is?

Beamer:

It’s between us.

Question:

To follow up on the practice question, does something need to change with how y’all are practicing or evaluating practice to where it more aligns with y’all’s expectations with your performance on Saturdays?

Beamer:

I mean, you’re always looking at what you need to do in practice to best give yourself the ability to go play well on Saturdays. And we’ve tweaked some things in practice this year, just like we do every year. But you know, you’re always looking at how to be better. But if I thought it was something that we were doing in practice, John, that would help us be better on Saturdays, I certainly would. We weren’t consistent enough last night, but to me, we were absolutely ready to play. And that comes from the week you have in practice. You don’t go right down the field the first three drives or whatever it was last night on offense if you’re not ready to play and haven’t prepared the right way. You don’t go three-and-out the first series on defense if you’re not prepared to play and ready to go play. And then the second drive is when we had the explosive and had some mishaps on offense, as we talked about last night. But no, that’s every week. If it was something I thought we needed to be doing differently, I would and I will, but we have a pretty structured practice schedule of how we do things. But each and every week I sit down on Sunday nights and Monday mornings and kind of map out what the practice schedule looks like for the week, and what we need to be doing based on the opponent. And it’s always about us is what we always say and making sure we’re putting together a practice schedule that best gives us the opportunity to go compete well on Saturdays.

Question:

Shane, there were a number of incidents with Dylan, and yet he kept going in the game. Why didn’t you guys just bench him for the night after one, two, or more of those?

Beamer:

Jordan, there’s a lot of things that happen on the sideline during games. And I know you were down there last night, video and whatnot, and you got a taste of what a sideline is like during a competitive, high-intensity environment. And that’s in basketball, that’s in football, that’s in college. It gets heated down there. And Dylan and a coach or players and coaches, there’s intense conversations and things that happen during games. And you’re in a competitive, hostile environment. So the decisions that we make in regard to what we do during games are between us, and we’re going to hold guys accountable for things. And that’s what we’re doing here. And that’s what we do with all of our players. But Dylan and South Carolina are not the first place that has ever had interactions that get heated on the sideline. It’s a competitive environment, and I’ve seen a lot of them over the years, whether it be at Georgia or Tennessee or Oklahoma or wherever else I’ve coached over the years.

Question:

Shane, last night JO mentioned that on those coverage busts, the defense just wasn’t on the same page. Just how frustrating is that, you know, with having a pretty veteran group back there, especially with that first group, and is there just something going wrong in the communication? How does that all get fixed?

Beamer:

Yeah, I mean, I think Justin was answering, you know, the question on what he thought was the best way to answer it, not saying that he’s wrong. I mean, there was one, I guess, that was an explosive play where we weren’t on the same page, but every other of the explosives that happened last night, it was their guy making a play and our guy not executing at times. So that’s frustrating when you don’t execute the coverage that’s called. But in regard to the play late in the game where Kendall Daniels made the hit on about the two- or three-yard line on the crossing route that they had, that was one where we weren’t on the same page. That one comes to mind. They did a good job with motion, and we didn’t communicate it the right way and put ourselves back in position. There was a run over on our sideline in the fourth quarter; they did a nice shift with 12 personnel, 2 tight ends on the field. And we had something called based on which tight end was where. And that was one where we didn’t quite- we got mixed up on the shift and tight end stuff that they were doing. That was one. But beyond that, Alex, there really wasn’t a lot of just guys being on the wrong page. It was guys not playing the coverage the way we need to play it. And when a scramble situation happens, we’ve got to be able to latch on to receivers and get the quarterback on the ground so he can’t run around forever either and throw the ball downfield. We can’t cover all day.

Question:

Shane, a few years ago, there were some defensive problems, and Clayton switched to the 3-3-5 to help alleviate some of those. Could a similar switch be in store now to try to help out that secondary?

Beamer:

Yeah, if it was, David, I really have no idea why I would say that on a Sunday night, six days before we play an SEC game. But I think in every game, you always, we talked about it as a staff, looking at our personnel that we have. Are we using the guys that we have the right way? And looking at what we’re doing schematically, are we doing the right things with these guys? We’ve got to put ourselves in position to limit the explosives and create more takeaways than what we’re doing on defense right now. Like, we got to be in position to knock the ball out. And when you give up that many explosives, you’re not even in position to knock the ball out and create takeaways and get interceptions. So that’s where it starts with us, regardless of whether we’re three down, four down, five down, two down, 11 DBs, 11 D linemen, whatever we play with, we got to get our best people out there. And that’s not just on defense, David; that’s on offense too. And we talked about that today, getting our best personnel out there on offense. I mean, it’s not like we just took a butt beating last night and all of a sudden realized this. I mean, every week we look at who and what gives us the best chance to be successful. And this week is no different.

And part of that too, Sean Murphy was out last night and wasn’t able to go. So that limits being able to play that three-down package because that three-down package is three linebackers. And if Sean’s not 100% healthy, we have confidence in Jamie and Risher as our 4th linebacker, but just felt like the best thing for us last night was to stay with the base package. But I know you guys watched the game closely and studied it today. I’m sure you guys saw us out there in some situations last night with extra defense alignment on the field, and doing some different things personnel-wise too, based on the personnel grouping and the down and distance.

Question:

Shane, when you have a game like last night where emotions get high, and it ends up being kind of a blowout loss for you guys, as the leader of the program, how do you kind of approach keeping these guys focused on what’s ahead and, not letting things continue to go down the path where you guys have lost two straight now?

Beamer:

As part of being in a leadership position, Jack, it’s easy when you’re 2 and 0 or #1 in the country or whatever it might be; when things are good, it’s easy to lead in those moments. It’s the hard, challenging moments that are hard. And I walked in my house last night at whatever time, 3 AM, and didn’t sleep much and was back in the office really early this morning. and realizing that when the players and coaches and staff, arrive in this building today, that all eyes are on me. And as the leader of the program, I’ve got to, one, be strong for everyone in this program and two, be able to plan the path of here’s what we’re doing and here’s how we’re going to do things going forward and what that looked like today. There are some real and honest meetings with one another about what happened last night, coach to coach, player to coach, player to player, all that. And It’s part of being on a team. There’s ups and downs. And right now we’re in a funk with these last two weeks. But I do know that we have a really talented football team. I know we have a good football team that cares. And I know that they’re going to come back to work on Tuesday when we hit the practice field and be ready to go attack this new week as a competitor. All you want is the opportunity to go compete again. And we get the opportunity to go compete again on Saturday and see if we can be a lot better.

Question:

Shane, in today’s world, when it comes to suspending a player making millions of dollars, does he still get his NIL money, and do you have to handle these highly paid players differently than they were handled years ago?

That’s internal and private to each program, Phil, in regards to how each program does things. I don’t know how other programs do things. I know how we do things. I’ll keep that to myself. In regards to is it different? No, regardless of what guys or ladies and other sports are getting paid. What hasn’t changed and never will is the standard of how we do things. It’s always about the team. And going back to Jack’s question a minute ago, my job is always as a leader to protect the team and do what’s best for the team. And sometimes those are really, really hard decisions, but it’s what’s best for the team. And that’s what I’m doing right now.

Question:

Shane, there’s a national report out there that your job security is in question with the loss to Kentucky this weekend. Have you had any conversations with Jeremiah Donati along those lines? Do you still feel pretty comfortable with where you sit right now?

Beamer:

I do. I’m focused, John, on putting together a better plan and getting a team better this week to go play. against Kentucky. That’s what my focus is on. Have I talked to Jeremiah? Yeah, I talked to Jeremiah 20 minutes ago. We had a great conversation right before I jumped on the teleconference with you guys. We talked last night in the locker room, he and Jeff Crane and all of our administrators who are super awesome. So they were super supportive last night after the game. And they were in the locker room when I talked to the team after the game. They were in the press conferences you saw. And you know, like I said, I talked to Jeremiah today, and you guys know me, a person of faith, and my faith is very important to me. And one of my favorite verses is Jeremiah, Chapter 17, Verse 7 and 8. And it talks about being a person whose trust is in the Lord and who does not fear when heat comes. And when you are in this position, you understand that you’re judged on wins and losses. I get that. But I don’t know about national reports or any of that stuff. All I know is my conversations with my bosses, and it’s been super supportive. We got a hell of a football team, John. We’re not playing like it right now, and it’s my job to get this stuff right and get us playing better football on Saturday.