What Shane Beamer said after South Carolina’s dominant SEC road win over Oklahoma
Here is what coach Shane Beamer said after South Carolina dominated Oklahoma for a 35-9 win Saturday:
About Saturday’s performance
To SEC Network’s Alyssa Lang, who asked, “How did you see the team translate that anger from last week into this performance today?”
“Just so happy for them coming off the heartbreaking loss that we had last week,” Beamer said. “I think so many of our players, their mentality this week was, ‘Enough’s enough,’ and they played like it.”
South Carolina fell short in their upset bid last week on the road against Alabama, losing 27-25 in the final seconds of the game. It was the second loss of the season after having a fourth-quarter lead over a ranked team and an SEC blue blood.
The Gamecocks responded by forcing four turnovers: two interceptions and two fumbles.
“We said one of the keys for us every single week is to win the turnover battle,” Beamer said. “Nick (Emmanwori) and those guys, they took that personal on defense. What a start.”
They got three of those turnovers in the first six minutes of the game. Emmanwori picked off Michael Hawkins Jr. on the first play of the game, before getting a pick-six a few minutes later.
USC jumped out to a 21-0 lead from those takeaways.
“So much respect for Coach (Brent) Venables and their program,” Beamer said. “We knew points were going to be really hard today, but just so proud of our guys to come off the heartbreak of last week, to come into another road environment in the SEC.
“People ask me: What’s the morale of your team, and how are you going to get them back? That was never in question. The only question was how well we were going to play today?”
On the defensive line’s play
To SEC Network’s Alyssa Lang, who asked, “What is it about this South Carolina defensive line that seems to get home every single week?”
“That’s unbelievable — against a heck of a football program as well,” Beamer said, referring to USC’s nine sacks from nine different players. “They’re just relentless. They love to compete. That’s the thing I love about this group. ... They love to practice. They love to work. They’re so much fun to be around.
“And I’m so blessed to be their coach, to be able to be around these guys each and every day. Even after the heartbreak of last week, coming back in the facility on Sunday and getting ready. Getting to be around these guys, they hurt, but they went right back to work and they showed it today. Finally.”
On winning in his return to Oklahoma
To SEC Network’s Alyssa Lang, who asked, “How much did getting this win for the first time for this program on this field mean?”
“It meant a lot,” Beamer said. “I told our team on Thursday that South Carolina and Oklahoma never played, and we had the chance to be be the only team ever in Gamecock history to beat Oklahoma.
“But there’s a lot of a lot of memories here personally, professionally. And it’s because of the great people here at OU I’m so blessed to have had three awesome years here. It’s pretty cool coming back.
There were players, like defensive lineman TJ Sanders, who wanted to get this win for Beamer, especially because of that history he has with the program.
“Some guys made some comments — just at the end of the day, just really happy for them,” Beamer said.
On the quick start
During his post-game conference:
“We didn’t want to change our mentality at all,” Beamer said when asked if the game plan changed up 21-0. “If anything, my conversation with the offense in the first half was, ‘Make sure we stay loose on the sideline.’ It’s been a minute since we’ve been out there.”
At that point, the offense had only been out there for the opening drive after Emmanwori’s first interception.
“And make sure when we do go out there, we take the field with the same killer instinct and mentality that we need to have,” Beamer said. “Certainly, we knew that when we got up like we did, it was going to be hard for them to come back and overtake that if we could continue to play well. But also knowing it’s a long way to go. It didn’t really change our game plan. We wanted to be aggressive and take shots downfield and press the issue.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2024 at 4:32 PM.
