Shane Beamer reacts: USC coach talks special teams, the offense and Rattler’s debut
South Carolina overcame a sluggish first half to defeat Georgia State on Saturday, winning 35-14.
USC (1-0) rolled out a very different offense from a year ago, with many transfers now in the fold. The team scored two touchdowns by way of blocked punts as well.
Here’s what Beamer had to say after his second career home opener as a head coach:
Opening statement: “Game wise, it was really ugly at times, obviously. We got a lot of work to do. We knew it was going to be a struggle to run the football because of the way they play defense.
We didn’t think it would be that much of a struggle. So obviously, we gotta be a lot better there…But having said that, I was really proud of the way our offense responded to some adversity. To throw an interception in the first series of the second half, and then to get the ball back and go right back down the field and score a huge touchdown was really big.”
On special teams: “Every week, we go into a game with fakes and things. Whether it be field goal, punt, whatever. Obviously, the situation would have to call for it. ... I mentioned to (special teams coordinator) Pete (Lembo) that I wouldn’t mind faking the field goal on the first field goal, just for different reasons. But we talked about it this morning at the hotel again as a staff and agreed that’s what we were going to do. And then obviously, you have to have the look. So we decided on it as a staff, I told Pete ‘call it.’ Based on the way Georgia State lined up, we felt pretty good about executing it based on what we had seen on film from last year.”
On injuries: “(RJ) Roderick we’ll see fine, (Jaylen) Nichols is fine, (Darius) Rush is fine, had a little bit of a hamstring but he would have been able to come back, same thing with Nichols. ... RJ’s got a little bit of an arm issue.
(Dakereon Joyner)’s got a calf that had been bothering him and really felt like he could’ve played. We just got out there and he didn’t feel great.”
On freshmen making appearances: “We had a bunch of freshmen out there tonight. Y’all saw Stone Blanton, you saw Kajuan Banks on defense. You saw Nick (Emmanwori), you saw DQ Smith. Really excited about these young guys.”
On offense: “Gotta run the ball better. We can’t be 3 for 14 on 3rd down. We can’t throw two interceptions. There’s a lot to build upon. Having said that, we knew because of their style of defense, it was going to be difficult and that they were going to be some ugly plays tonight. And we told the team that last night.”
On blocking: “We didn’t do a great job of blocking on the perimeter tonight. We had some opportunities for some big plays and we threw bubbles out there and quick screens and, frankly, we got our butts kicked on the perimeter a couple times.
And that was a big point of emphasis going into the game, so that was disappointing to see. So we gotta block on the perimeter better. But we wanted to get the ball on the perimeter and we wanted to take shots and give our guys a chance to go make plays.”
On Spencer Rattler’s performance: “Showing his athleticism, that he’s more than a guy that sits in the pocket. He really made some nice throws tonight when they brought some pressure. He was able to get out of the pocket and make some plays with his feet and get the ball down field.
His command’s only going to continue to get better. We gotta continue to help him with what we have, what we’re calling and the amount of offense that we’re asking him to learn. But I thought he was good.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2022 at 12:48 AM.
