Shane Beamer, South Carolina Gamecocks Head Football Coach

We miss college football. Drops back. Pressure from the edges. He throws near sideline. And it's intercepted. Intercepted. Keely Ringo to 21.

Off he goes. 40, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30. Near sideline.

Breaks attack on 20, 15, 10, 5. Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown Georgia. Let the celebration begin.

We can't wait for the 2022 season. Rice gets it. Backpedals onto the end zone. Loads up.

Looks long. He's not going behind the defense. Jamison makes the grab at midfield. Down the right sideline.

40, 30, 20, 10, 5. Touchdown Alabama. 94 yards. And we're counting down the days to kick off. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? I said no. Are we there yet?

What's wrong with your ears? Here is your college football fix. Only on the Zach Gelb Show. We're almost there to the start of the college football season. Week zero this weekend and a full slate of games next weekend. We're coming to you live on the Zach Gelb Show from the Rocket Mortgage Studios. Whether you're looking to purchase a new home or refinance yours, Rocket Mortgage can help you get there for home-owned solutions that fit your life.

Rocket can. Very excited for this upcoming season of South Carolina football. The Gamecocks last year had a big victory up against Florida.

40-17. They capped off their season with a bowl victory up against UNC. Now they have Spencer Rattler. And for Shane Beamer, it will be his second year as the head coach at South Carolina.

And the HC joins us right now. Coach, appreciate the time. How are you?

I'm doing great. Appreciate you having me on. Well, thanks so much. I want to start things off with the video that I saw circulate last week. And I'm always a sucker for this type of content when a coach just surprises a kid and rewards him with a scholarship. Take me through what it meant to give out a scholarship to Peyton Mangrum.

Yeah, no, it was pretty awesome. Peyton, somebody that was very deserving. Somebody that, you know, last year I told him that the first opportunity I could to get him on I wanted to because he had earned it.

He's a guy that's played meaningful snaps for us on special teams and on offense. And works really hard and just goes about and does his job on and off the field every single day. So anytime you can reward somebody with a scholarship, it's a great feeling. And you can tell by the reaction of his teammates. They felt the same way as I did. And I loved how casually you just dropped the news on everyone, coach.

A couple of the players told me that they thought it was very smooth the way that I did it as well. So practiced it a little bit and thought it would be a cool way of doing that in a team meeting watching some clips from practice previously. Shane Beamer here with us, the head coach at South Carolina. So you've been around football your entire life. We know about your career.

Seven and six a year ago. When you look back at last season, what did you learn about yourself with the full year now under your belt at South Carolina as the head coach? You know, plenty. You know, you're never even growing up the son of a head coach. You're never truly prepared for what this job entails until you're actually, you know, behind the desk and actually doing it. So every day you're learning something about the job and still am to this day.

I mean, every day something that you don't expect comes up. But, you know, certainly realized it and throughout the year that you better have some great people around you. And I do with the players and coaches and staff here as well. And then, you know, I just was able to take took so much from my dad and the other coaches that I've worked for. But, you know, one thing from my dad that I learned is just the consistency that you have to have, you know, day in, day out in this position. Because all eyes are on you and you don't want to get too high or too low after a win, after a loss.

Just come right back to work every single day and get better. And I knew that. But, you know, certainly being in this role, you realize that even more. And you're feeling the heightened awareness now because a lot of people are talking about the successful season you had a year ago and no one's going to be sleeping on you this year. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but it really speaks to what you're able to do in year one.

Yeah, for sure. Proud of what the 2021 team did and a lot of the adversity we overcame from an injury standpoint. We still found a way to go from two wins to seven wins in our first year and win a bowl game against North Carolina and beat Auburn and Florida down the stretch.

It was a great way to finish. And there is a lot of excitement about South Carolina football right now. And there are higher expectations and we embrace those and are excited about that. You want to coach at a place that has high expectations like we do. But also, you know, we realize the work that's in front of us that, you know, we were a inconsistent team last year. We have to be more consistent. We have to, you know, play and coach better overall than what we did last season. And you also realize that we play in the toughest conference in the country. And all these opponents of ours, they're not slowing down either. So we've got to continue to really work hard to put ourselves in position to be in the conversation with those guys and have success on the field week in, week out like we want to. Talking to Shane Beamer right now, the head football coach of South Carolina.

Turning a program around doesn't happen overnight even though you guys took a massive step in year number one. Everyone talks about culture and we want the culture to be this. What do you want your culture to be like at South Carolina? Well, to me that's, when you talk about that word, to me it's the environment. And when somebody walks in our facility, you know, what does it feel like? And do they feel a certain way?

And people have told me they do. And to me that's one, you walk in this building and you feel a lot of joy and love for each other. The people in our football facility, day in, day out, a place that guys want to be at and want to be a part of for sure. And then, you know, I think if you asked any one of our players, they would tell you this is a place where they know that as players that we as coaches really care about them deeply.

And everybody talks about that but it's real here, you know, without a doubt. And just that, just the way we treat people, the energy we want to have in this building, the love for each other we want to have in this building, it all starts with that. And it speaks to what you guys are doing with the way that you guys performed last year because now there's so much change in college football for good and then also for some bad.

But earning the trust of young kids, of teenagers and young adults is not easy and it looks like your program did that pretty quickly. Yeah, you know, for us it's just trying to be honest with these guys and be consistent. And there's highs and lows in this profession, being a college football player, there's highs and lows.

And, you know, you just try and weather the storm and throughout the good, throughout the bad, you just constantly continue to treat people the right way, continue to be honest with people, continue to hold them accountable and just be consistent. And that's what we did last season. I think our players, you know, appreciate that and it is a different time with Transfer Portal and whatnot. But with us, we just try and make this a program that people want to be a part of, that, you know, we work really hard and it's really, it's not easy being a football player here at South Carolina, but there's a lot of joy and love that goes into it as well that the guys want to be here and be a part of. This past offseason through training camp, and you guys got to open up next weekend, Saturday night, going up against Georgia State, just what did you sense from your kids this entire offseason when you look and the work that you guys put in? Without a doubt, the desire to be better than what we were last year. You know, coming from not going to a bowl game for two years and then all of a sudden we go to a bowl game last year, it would have been easy for a lot of guys to, you know, forget the work that went into getting bowl eligible, the work that went into winning a bowl game. And then get used to the people that are patting them on the back, telling them what a great job they did last season and all that. And I have not seen that from our guys. I've seen a group that has worked really, really hard, done everything that we've asked, a group that loves to practice, loves to work, loves to compete, and has a strong, strong desire to get better.

And it's been that way since January and it's continued through preseason practice here in August. Talking to Shane Beamer, I have a lot of respect for Mark Stoops and what he's been able to do at Kentucky, but even when you're a school like Kentucky, people try to put limitations on them on what they could do in football just because the nature of the Beast playing in the best conference in college football. People, when they talk about your program, they go, wow, you're number one, we'll see what steps they take in year number two, but what do you say to people that try to put limitations on your program just because of the respect that people have around the country for what Alabama and Georgia have been able to do the last few years? Well, it's an unbelievably tough conference to be a part of, but we embrace that and love that.

As competitors, you want to compete against the best. My response would be that we've shown here at South Carolina that we can win at the highest level. My last year here as an assistant coach, we played in the SEC Championship game over in Atlanta against Auburn.

And then after that season, Coach Spurrier in South Carolina had three straight seasons of top 10 finishes, if I'm not mistaken. So we've won at a high, high level. We've won national championships here in other sports, baseball, women's basketball, for example, and there's no reason why you can't do it in football.

Now you got to be the very best in your conference for sure to even have a chance to do that. But we have the resources that we need to do that. We got a recruiting base, we got a great, great academics here. We got a great city that we live in, we got great facilities. So like you got great people in this program. And we're just trying to continue to elevate this program a little bit each day and, and continue to, you know, build this program to where we all want it to be.

Shane Beamer here with us. You mentioned Coach Steve Spurrier when you got a chance to work with him. What was the lesson or two that you learned from him? I know that you could probably sit here and talk for 30 minutes, but give me a few things about coach.

Yeah, that could be a whole show. I think the biggest thing is one, you better have great players. And, you know, we have some great players during that time as well. But, you know, for me with coach Spurrier, it was, it was realizing how each team will take on in so many ways the personality of their head coach. And I truly believe that a lot of the success that we had here at South Carolina was just because of the confidence, swagger, whatever you want to call it that coach Spurrier carried himself with, you know, and I saw that that our players fed off that. And, and inspired, you know, confidence in them to go out and play loose and play free and play the game the right way.

And, and we were able to have a lot of, a lot of success doing that. We all know what your father was able to accomplish at Virginia Tech, and it was a really great run for your dad at that university. When you look back at your time playing for him and then coaching with him, just what are the memories that come back to mind?

And what does that relationship mean all these years later? Not truly blessed to have been able to play and coach for him and had some, you know, just so many really, really special moments. I mean, my senior year of college, my last year playing for him was, was 1999 and we went undefeated and played Florida State for the national championship. So what a storybook finish to my time as a player at Tech and playing for my dad to be able to go undefeated and, and have be a part of the best season in Virginia Tech football history.

Now, the way the story ended was not what we wanted losing in that national championship game. And that still hurts to this day, but what a magical season that was to be a part of and to share it with my dad. And then really just the time, you know, my first year when I went back with him as an assistant coach at Virginia Tech, we, we played in the ACC championship game, played in the Sugar Bowl and that was awesome. And then really for me, it was just the opportunity to be with him during his last season as a coach. And, you know, when I went back to Virginia Tech, I didn't know if I'd be there for a year, two years, three years, but I ended up being there five years as an assistant coach with him. And so thanks, so thankful that I was, because it allowed me to be a part of the 2015 season, which was his last year as a coach and, and go out with him, if you will.

You know, winning the, winning the Independence Bowl that season and his last college game as a coach, you know, I wouldn't have had it any other way being with him on that day. Wrapping up with Shane Beamer, the head football coach at South Carolina, you've been before working with your quarterback, your new quarterback, Spencer Attler, back to your days and time at Oklahoma. What are South Carolina fans getting in Spencer Attler? A guy that's very hungry, a guy that loves to work, a guy that has come in here and done a great job trying to acclimate himself to our program and our football team and, and being a great, working to be a great leader. But just a guy that's, you know, excited for a fresh start, that is a really, really good quarterback. He's a guy that, you know this, he hasn't lost a game as a starting quarterback since September of 2020. And he's, he's done some really, really great things and excited that he's here with us right now and, and excited to be connected with him again. We've had him on about two months ago and I was very impressed with him because we know he has all the physical tools, coach, but you just wonder how a player responds mentally when you go through getting benched after being a first round, projected first round pick, projected Heisman finalist before last season started.

Being around him, just what is he showing you mentally trying to move on from that? Yeah, no, he's, you know, whatever happened in the past, I think he knows is in the past and he's moved on and it's a fresh start for him. And what we're doing offensively is a different system than what he was used to at Oklahoma. So he's working really hard to learn that and, and, you know, be the very best player that he can be here at Carolina.

And certainly he had an experience at Oklahoma where he accomplished a lot during his time there. And I know he's proud of that and, and I know he's eager to, to get out there on the field with us this season and keep this thing going. Last thing I want to ask you, coach Shane Beamer, just throughout this summer, have you sensed a little extra something from a player or two that you just want to highlight right now that we should be paying attention to on the offensive and defensive side of the ball?

Not really. And I know it's coach speak, but I really just, I like this group and I think I could name multiple guys on that side of the ball. And we've got a bunch of guys that are newcomers that have come in, transfers, freshmen, and that we're excited about. We've got some returning players that have really improved since the end of last season that we're excited about.

You know, the depth and the competition at every position right now to me is better than what it was last year. And as a coach, that's exciting. Well, coach, we appreciate the time. Thanks so much. Good luck coming up next weekend against Georgia State. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you having me on.