5 goals Shane Beamer has for a successful first spring practice with the Gamecocks
On Saturday, 104 days after he was officially hired as the new head coach of South Carolina football, Shane Beamer finally led his first full practice with the Gamecocks.
And over the next month or so, Beamer will preside over 14 more spring practices as USC returns to the practice field for the first time since the team dropped out of the Gasparilla Bowl on Dec. 22, ending a disappointing 2-8 season.
There’s a lot for Beamer to do this spring, with the Gamecocks losing more than dozen players to the NFL or transfer portal and adding a class of newcomers from the high school, junior college and transfer portal ranks. On Thursday in a news conference, Beamer was asked what a successful spring would like in his book. Here are some of the priorities he identified.
Stay healthy
It’s obvious, but that’s because it’s true — the Gamecocks can ill afford to lose any more bodies.
“Ideally we’d love to stay healthy, obviously throughout the spring. That’s a given at all positions,” Beamer said.
The Gamecocks are starting the spring sessions already down some players who are either recovering from offseason surgery or got banged up in the team’s offseason program. Chief among them is star running back MarShawn Lloyd. He was expected to lead USC’s backfield last season before tearing his ACL in August, and he’s still working his way back from that. Whether he’ll be ready for the annual Garnet & Black spring game on April 24, Beamer couldn’t say, but it’s probably more important at this point to ensure as many players who are currently healthy remain so, rather than hurry Lloyd back.
Convey expectations
Every coach wants to see his players play with intensity, but Beamer made a point of emphasizing that he wanted to make sure his players understood the aggressiveness with which he wants to play.
“From an overall standpoint, understanding and learning the mentality and the temperament and the physicality that we want to practice with and play with every single time we take the field. I would hope that when fans and other teams watch us play in the fall, that they sit there and watch South Carolina play and say to themselves, ‘My God, I’ve never seen a team play that hard,’” Beamer said.
Again, that desire is not exactly unique to Beamer, and it’s not as if players don’t already play hard, he acknowledged. But keeping expectations for effort high and making sure they’re aware of them is something Carolina has to “get done for sure.”
Develop depth
Related to staying healthy, South Carolina enters the spring with its numbers pretty severely depleted. Because of the NCAA’s 25-player limit per signing class, the Gamecocks are likely to have fewer than the full allotment of 85 scholarship players in the fall, and right now some players haven’t arrived on campus yet. That will limit some of what Beamer would like to do.
“We’ve got to develop depth. Normally in the spring time, a lot of places I’ve been, you would be able to work multiple groups at one time, meaning you might have 11-on-11 going on on this field, but then you might have another team period of 11 versus 11 going on on the other field,” Beamer said. “And unfortunately right now just because of some depth issues, particularly on defense, we can’t do that.”
Perhaps the most two pressing spots there are at wide receiver and defensive back. The Gamecocks have very little returning production at either position, and anyone who can show something would immediately put himself in a position to earn substantial snaps.
Figure out strengths
Beamer comes to South Carolina having worked under coaches who have run all kinds of systems, from offensive gurus like Lincoln Riley and Steve Spurrier, to defensive minds like Kirby Smart to special teams stars like his own father, Frank Beamer.
All of that’s to say, it’s not exactly clear what style of play will define Beamer’s teams at USC. His offensive coordinator, Marcus Satterfield, has said he hopes to blend some of what he learned under NFL coach Joe Brady with Beamer’s experience at Oklahoma. Defensive coordinator Clayton White, meanwhile, runs a 4-2-5 system, but the exact mechanics of how that will work haven’t really been clear.
And some of that is by design, Beamer said Thursday, as the coaches have wanted to see the roster in action before committing too much to one scheme.
“Just figuring out, like I said, what we do well. I hired three coordinators that are very multiple and flexible in their systems, and we want to accentuate the strengths of our offense, defense and special teams,” Beamer said. “So being able to determine that during spring practice and figuring out what we’re going to look like in all three phases going forward in the fall.”
Identify a starting QB
This wasn’t something Beamer talked about when asked about his vision for a successful spring, but he did mention it later in Thursday’s press conference when asked when he would like to name a starting quarterback.
“I think it’s always good when you can (name a starter after spring practice),“ Beamer said. “Certainly as you head into summer workouts and the team knows that, OK, this guy’s our starting quarterback and to empower him with that leadership ability, sure.”
Immediately after that, though, Beamer pointed out that he’s been a part of staffs and teams where quarterback competitions that have dragged into the fall, just days before the first game of the season, and he indicated he would be willing to do the same if it’s needed at South Carolina.
At the same time, the QB competition for the Gamecocks will likely come down to sophomore Luke Doty and redshirt senior Jason Brown, who offer very different skillsets. While Doty is regarded as a true dual threat, capable of inflicting damage with his legs, Brown is a big-bodied, pro-style passer. So settling one or the other before preseason camp would likely be helpful if Satterfield wants to further refine his system.
This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
