Why spring practice will start later, end later to start Beamer era at USC
Spring football will be a little later than Gamecock fans have been used to this year.
New South Carolina coach Shane Beamer announced Tuesday a tentative start date of March 20 for practices, with the spring game taking place April 24.
Under former coach Will Muschamp, the Gamecocks usually started spring football practices in late February before playing the annual Garnet & Black spring game in late March or early April.
But with Beamer bringing in a new coaching staff and turning over a large chunk of the roster, he said he wanted to give everyone extra time to prepare for the start of practices.
“I thought it was important for us to maximize the time in the weight room with (strength and conditioning coach Luke Day) before spring practice, the time that offensive, defensive and special team staffs have to implement their systems and figure out what our plan of attack is going forward,” Beamer said Tuesday when introducing new assistants Torrian Gray (defensive backs), Jimmy Lindsey (defensive line) and Luke Day (strength and conditioning). “So that gives us roughly nine weeks starting this week to get stuff done in the weight room and get organized from that standpoint.”
In 2020, South Carolina got five practices in starting in late February before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the program to shut down for several months. This year, Beamer said he’s planning on proceeding with a full 15-practice schedule for spring ball. He did not specify if the schedule would be adjusted in the case of a coronavirus outbreak.
“I’m proceeding full speed ahead with spring practice like normal until somebody tells me otherwise, and all my conversations have been we’re full speed ahead,” Beamer said.
Even with the extra prep time ahead of that March 20 start, Beamer said he expects the spring practices to be busy, to the point of jam-packed.
“There’s so much that has to get done, you got 15 practices with a new staff and a lot of new players and new faces out there, so 15 practices really isn’t enough,” Beamer said of what he hopes to accomplish in the spring. “But, you know, obviously the base stuff — to get in there and establish the foundation of your schemes, offense, defense and special teams, players learning how we coach, us learning our players, developing mental and physical toughness, getting better as a football team.
“I mean, all the things that every team across the country is trying to do in spring practice, especially more so for us this year with the fact that we didn’t get spring practice last year (and) a new coaching staff, new faces. It’ll be extra important for us to be able to get that in.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 1:44 PM.
