What Shane Beamer said during his Sunday teleconference after Oklahoma win

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media one day after the Gamecocks’ 35-9 victory over Oklahoma during his Sunday night teleconference.

Here’s what he had to say.

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— After watching the tape, it was what we thought we would see. It was fun seeing it in person and also fun to rewatch the tape. There was a ton of effort. Still things to improve but it was a great day.

— Players of the game:

Offense

LaNorris Sellers

Dre Jacobs

Defense

Tonka Hemingway

Demetrius Knight Jr.

Nick Emmanwori

Special Teams

D Knight

Scout

Nick Elksnis

Joseph Byrnes

Lukas Vozeh

— Optimistic that Jared Brown will be back for A&M. No major injuries at Oklahoma.

— We were 12th in the country in takeaways going into the game. We’ve been known for that the last three years and this season but we knew going in that it would be even more important. Felt like the team that won the turnover battle would win the game. We won it 4-0. It was a big intent to get it out in practice this week. Great effort on defense. Second and third effort were cool to see. They may have been tired of hearing me say how much effort Oklahoma D plays with.

— Need to continue to self scout and look at what we’re doing on offense. Not going to use the excuse that we’re young anymore because we’re seven games in. Those freshmen ain’t freshmen anymore. We need to e more efficient. We did some really good things but also some things that weren’t good. Disappointed in the 69 yards of offense in second half. “That’s ridiculous.” Had opportunities. Had a nice drive then got pushed back by self-inflicted issues. If we hit the Michael Smith scramble play might be a different story. They’re good on defense but we still need to be better on offense.

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— We played like hot garbage coming off the last bye week so you certainly look at what we’re doing and see if there’s anything to tweak. You’ve got to look at where you are as a team health-wise. We’re seven games in and are about to do five straight games. A lot of the freshmen have not played this long so we need to be cognizant of that. Also we have to look at where we need to improve.

Talked about that with Loggains and Clayton White. The overall structure will be similar but it’s about seeing what we need more and less of or are there situational things to work on. We need to be smart about what we do physically while also focusing on specific things we need to improve on.

Last off week we had a normal Sunday we just didn’t practice. We gave them the day off today and they’ll be back in tomorrow.

— Any time you struggle in the running game, it’s all 11 guys. You look at all the positions. All five positions on offense had a hand in the good runs and the bad ones. We all have a hand in it, coaches as well. We’ve got to be more efficient in the running game. Have to acknowledge that Oklahoma does a ton on defense and we didn’t combat what they did enough and needed to have a plan for that.

— Agree that the defense is playing faster this year. The DBs are all long and athletic. Up front those tackles were all here last year and are playing with a lot more confidence and we’re able to keep them fresher this year. At EDGE we’re deeper and better.

I think at the linebacker position is where you look. Said before the season we were going to be deeper and more athletic than we were last year. We had two good players that left the program but we replaced them with someone faster and more athletic in D Knight and JayR Johnson, who is an athletic guy who can run. When you add size and speed to your D it’s going to look faster. More depth and more athleticism overall.

— Wanted to be smart on third downs with the big early lead. Oklahoma had a situation where the opponent was trying to put the game away and they bluffed a look and created a pick 6 to win the game. We weren’t passive or conservative but we also wanted to be smart because our defense was playing well and they were coming after us. We were trying to be smart with how the game was going and what Oklahoma was doing.

— We’ve got multiple guys at EDGE who have been starters. You want to continue to bring them all along. It certainly helps to be able to throw so many guys into the game. That was a point of emphasis after last season. We had a lot of guys that played too many snaps last year and got worn down at times.

— On redshirting guys who aren’t true freshmen and how you manage it: You have to have conversations about it and see where their heads are at. There was one a couple of weeks ago where I didn’t think his intentions were to return next year. Tell those guys that if you’re redshirting and don’t work hard it’s not going to be good for any of us. You need to keep working so you’re a better player next year. We also tell those guys that the obligation is to the 2024 team, so if we need you to win that’s what we’ll do. Nobody has been told they’ll definitely redshirt. If we need you to win a game, that’s what we’ll do and everyone understands that.

— Really happy that Davis Beville was able to get into he game. He’s been a great teammate. We made him a captain for the game. Reached out to four of our players who have been here a long time about making Davis a captain and they were all for it. Very happy for him. A lot was made about me going back to Norman but he was going back too. It was special for him and we wanted to get him in the game. Talked about it with Loggains and Shula with about 10 minutes left. Didn’t envision him going in and getting sacked but happy for him. He was excited to be back.

— Not as optimistic about Jules being back for A&M as with Jared Brown. Still optimistic Jules will be back for that game but he’s just not as far along as Brown.

— With OD Fortune out, Judge Collier, Vicari Swain, and David Spaulding did some good things. Spaulding has meant a lot to the defense because he can play any spot in the secondary. Really appreciate him and all those guys for how they played.

— The 4th and 5 where they got them to jump offside near end of the half was completely to try to get them to jump. Was not going to actually snap the ball.

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