On Tuesday, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media to preview South Carolina\u2019s matchup with Kentucky this weekend. Here\u2019s what he had to say.<\/p>\n
[Join GamecockCentral for in-depth Gamecock coverage and The Insiders Forum]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Wants to thank the fans for last Saturday. Second hottest game on record. It was loud. Gamecock Walk was awesome. Crowd noise was a factor til the end.<\/p>\n \u2014 Excited to open up SEC play against Kentucky. Has great respect for Mark Stoops and his program. Followed Wildcat athletics when he was living in Kentucky for 8 years of his life.<\/p>\n \u2014 Big challenge on their hands. Kentucky has weapons at receiver, talented offensive line and a great QB. New offensive coordinator but they\u2019re operating at a high level. Kentucky returns 10 starters on defense. It\u2019s essentially the same defense as last year. So they\u2019re really good on defense with arguably the best DT in the conference.<\/p>\n \u2014 The way ODU plays defense made it tough to do a lot of things. They take away a lot with what they do schematically. Didn\u2019t do a good enough job of executing. Have to coach better, execute better.<\/p>\n \u2014 Sellers is a hell of a quarterback. There\u2019s a lot of pressure on that guy going into Saturday. He\u2019s a really good quarterback. On Friday, he said Sellers didn\u2019t need to be Superman. They\u2019re better around him on offense this year compared to last year from a depth stand point.<\/p>\n \u2014 Offense will continue to get better each week. Had a lot of new starters on offense. A lot of new faces around Sellers and they\u2019ll get better throughout the season.<\/p>\n \u2014 There was a mix of lack of effort and scheme on the perimeter blocking. There were times where they didn\u2019t go in with the intent and strain they needed to. Mazeo Bennett competed his rear end off in the box on blocking. They need more of that. Sometimes they were in the right place, just didn\u2019t have the right intent to finish through and block.<\/p>\n \u2014 The offensive line played really hard. Josiah Thompson didn\u2019t look lost as a freshman starting at left tackle. Vershon Lee was great. Yes, there were some protection issues. But he\u2019s excited about the OL.<\/p>\n \u2014 Thought the WR-QB connection looked off. The ball to Nyck Harbor was just a high throw by Sellers. But for the most part, Sellers threw the ball well. They need to be better. They\u2019re continuing to gel as a WR room and trying to do it as fast as they can. They should\u2019ve been better. Told the team there were 88 days til the Clemson game. They have to come together pretty quickly here.<\/p>\n \u2014 There was a communication issue\/malfunction on the helmet communication on the deep ball from ODU. Having said that, they can\u2019t let that happen. The long QB run for an ODU touchdown was just not being in the right gap.<\/p>\n \u2014 It\u2019s concerning to talk about red zone issues after the first game, just like last year. It was a factor in the UNC game, just like it was on Saturday. It comes down to execution. They just need to be better. It\u2019s hard down there in the red zone.<\/p>\n \u2014 The big issue is the helmet communication cuts off at 15 seconds and then it comes back on manually for the next play, from what he understands. When you\u2019re playing teams that go really fast, they need the person that turns on the helmet communication manually to do it really fast. But there\u2019s no excuse with that.<\/p>\n [Win two tickets to the South Carolina-LSU football game]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 God blessed Dylan Stewart with a lot of ability. Sterling Lucas has done a great job coaching him up. He brings a lot of speed and physicality. The other 10 players definitely helped out on those plays.<\/p>\n \u2014 Doesn\u2019t mind answering the questions during Carolina Calls. Understands why Dabo Swinney won\u2019t be taking live questions anymore. But he\u2019s fine with it and hearing from the fans.<\/p>\n \u2014 He was a little surprised with how the passing game turned out. But he didn\u2019t expect them to throw for 400 yards against ODU\u2019s defense. They need to be better because he thought they\u2019d be better on Saturday. But at the same time, he knows what challenges ODU\u2019s styles of defense brings. ODU takes away the ability to throw slants and other short passes. The DBs can drop into coverage from different places.<\/p>\n \u2014 Being able to run as a QB is another threat. There\u2019s games where they\u2019ve gone into a game wanting to make a QB pull it and run. Do they want to run Sellers 20-plus times every game? No. But there\u2019s things you can do to present problems for defenses with his skill set.<\/p>\n \u2014 Wants to scheme stuff for Harbor. They need to find ways to get the ball in his hands, along with other receivers and running backs. He presents problems for defenses. They need to get him going.<\/p>\n \u2014 You just continue to work to get guys to gel and play better, specifically at WR. Everyone needs to be willing to do the unrequired. Stay the course and it\u2019ll come.<\/p>\n The post What Shane Beamer said previewing Kentucky<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Tuesday, head coach Shane Beamer spoke to the media to preview South Carolina\u2019s matchup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69002","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\/69002","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=69002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69038,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69002\/revisions\/69038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n