South Carolina was in one of its roughest hours. It had just finished off a 2-8 season, ending 2020 with a 41-18 loss to Kentucky. Next on the team\u2019s to-do list would be finding a new head coach after firing Will Muschamp.<\/p>\n
As the final minutes of the final game ticked away, the unofficial news broke that the Gamecocks found their guy. Shane Beamer, the son of Frank Beamer and a coach during the Steve Spurrier days, was hired as the next head coach.<\/p>\n
Less than three years since that fateful day, Beamer has slowly started to turn the Gamecocks into a winner. He\u2019s gone 15-11 (7-9 SEC) with two bowl game appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made a lot of progress the last two seasons. There\u2019s no doubt about it. We\u2019ve accomplished a lot of firsts,\u201d Beamer said in an interview with On3\u2019s Jesse Simonton.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cBut we have to keep going. We have to keep maximizing the potential of this team.\u201d<\/p>\n [Get 6 months of GamecockCentral for only $29.99!]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Beamer was already well-known amongst Gamecock fans before arriving in December 2020. He was an assistant under Steve Spurrier from 2007-10, and helped land in-state talent such as Marcus Lattimore, Alshon Jeffery, Stephon Gilmore and Jadaveon Clowney. But when he came back to become head coach, he quickly became a fan favorite.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an infectious personality that comes with Beamer. It\u2019s hard not to like him.<\/p>\n But while Beamer will tell you he\u2019s continuing to grow as a coach, his persona hasn\u2019t changed for anybody. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I became a head coach I wasn\u2019t going to try and be somebody that I\u2019m because I feel like that\u2019s how you\u2019re supposed to act as a head football coach. Are there things that I\u2019ve taken from Kirby Smart? Yes. Are there things that I\u2019ve taken from Lincoln Riley or Philip Fulmer or Steve Spurrier, or dad? Yeah, but at the end of the day I\u2019m going to be me. I realize how blessed I am to be in this position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n [Become an NIL supporter of your South Carolina Gamecocks!]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n If there\u2019s one thing to know about Beamer, it\u2019s that he enjoys to have fun with his team. He\u2019s been in a handful of viral videos, most notably when he turned his swag on to Soulja Boy before SEC Media Days and one where he facetimed players to see how they\u2019d respond. And it\u2019s not some gimmick.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s only 14 of these positions as a head coach in the SEC. It\u2019s really high pressure and it\u2019s extremely demanding. Every day is an adventure, but I\u2019m going to enjoy the role that I\u2019m in,\u201d Beamer said. \u201cHopefully, me being me, and that realness, that genuineness resonates with people. I want to be approachable, not some standoff guy because I\u2019m a head football coach in the SEC.\u201d<\/p>\n But once the season starts, it\u2019s all business for him. It\u2019s going to be an important one for the Gamecocks, who will be looking to take another big step in 2023. They no longer are the underdog, feel good story of college football. They will be the hunted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t assume that because things went one way in 2022 that it\u2019s automatically going to go that way again in 2023. So I\u2019ve challenged our coaches to be better in every area,\u201d Beamer said.\u00a0\u201cWe have to find better ways to do the same things. Don\u2019t just be status quo. From the training room, equipment room, nutrition, the weight room, coaching, how you teach a drill or scheme, let\u2019s be better in every area because we play in the toughest conference in America.\u201d<\/p>\n The post \u2018We have to keep maximizing the potential of this team\u2019: Beamer taking South Carolina football to new heights<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Carolina was in one of its roughest hours. It had just finished off a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n