What did Beamer learn through twists of building Gamecock staff? ‘Trust my instinct’
It’s been a little over 100 days since South Carolina football last took the field, playing a gameagainst Kentucky that would end the 2020 season and usher in the end of Will Muschamp’s tenure and the start of the Shane Beamer era.
In those three-plus months, Beamer and the Gamecocks have managed to pack in quite a bit of intrigue and drama, between two national signing days and the coming and going of more than a dozen player transfers.
But perhaps the subject of the most discussion was the assembly of Beamer’s staff — the journey to 10 on-field assistants and a strength coach took twists and turns and the better part of two months before it finally ended with running backs coach Montario Hardesty being hired in early February.
In that time, three coaches from the previous staff who initially agreed to stay on with Beamer departed for new jobs — offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, defensive line coach Tracy Rocker and RBs coach Des Kitchings. Another, offensive line coach Will Friend, spent all of about two weeks on the job before leaving with Bobo for Auburn.
Amid all those unexpected changes, Beamer admitted in January that he had “made some mistakes, for sure,” though at the time, he didn’t specify exactly what those were.
In a one-on-one interview with The State, Beamer elaborated a little more on what went wrong, and what he learned from the experience.
“I mean, after what I thought the initial staff was ended up being something different, then what I thought that initial staff was ended up being something different. And then what I thought that initial staff was ended up being something different,” Beamer acknowledged. “But in the end — and this isn’t to knock anybody, I don’t mean it this way — but in the end it fit together perfectly, in my opinion, just the vibe, the energy, the dynamic, the way these guys complement each other, the way that they enjoy being around each other.”
Going into the hiring process, Beamer said, current and former head coaches told him to take his time and make sure he got the right people in, no matter the pressure from fans and media. Coming out of it, he said that advice rang true.
“As far as what I learned, it was one, what those guys said was true. Take your time,” Beamer said.
“Probably more than anything it was just trust my instinct, not just when it comes to putting together the coaching staff, but every decision that I make here. You know, whether it be something that I thought I should do begin at the beginning, but maybe didn’t for different reasons. Or once I did make a decision, having a feeling that it wasn’t right and trusting my instinct to make it right, which I’m glad that I did. So in the end it all came together like it should have and I’m really excited about where we are as we sit here in March.”
Beamer and the man he hired to replace Bobo as offensive coordinator, Marcus Satterfield, have talked before about building a staff full of young, hungry coaches eager to prove themselves at the SEC level.
“It’s not, you know, some retreads that got fired from an NFL team or a former offensive coordinator that is at the tail end of his career,” Satterfield said of the staff back in January.
Three of the four coaches who left — Bobo, Friend and Rocker — all have at least seven years of coaching experience in the SEC. USC’s new offensive line coach Greg Adkins has 11, but no other Gamecock assistant has more than five.
With the influx of fresh faces has come a positive energy around the program, Beamer and others have said. At the same time, what was initially going to be a staff 40% comprised of holdovers from the previous regime has become one with with just one (Mike Peterson). And with all that change has come something of a reset, Beamer said.
“I think any time a new coach comes in, things are gonna be different. My expectations are different than coach Muschamp’s, in different ways,” Beamer said. “It’s not necessarily good or bad. It’s just I have a different way of doing things than he does. Kirby Smart had a different way of doing things than Mark Richt did, and so on and so forth.
“So certainly you’re trying to instill what you want your program to be about for sure. So that’s why the biggest thing for us right now as a program, in the weight room with (strength coach) Luke Day and as we get into spring practices, just making sure our players understand what we want this program to be about and how we’re going to do things and what our expectations are.”
