Everything South Carolina Head Coach Shane Beamer Said After Falling to No. 7 Alabama

The Gamecocks couldn't quite pull off the upset after recovering a late onside kick in the fourth quarter.

Oct 12, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer during the first half at Bryant-Denny Stadium. / Butch Dill-Imagn Images

No. 7 Alabama football edged out the South Carolina Gamecocks 27-25 in a nail-biting showdown on Saturday.

In the fourth quarter, trailing 27-19, South Carolina closed the gap with a 31-yard back-shoulder toe-tap touchdown pass to Nyck Harbor. However, the Gamecocks failed to convert the crucial two-point attempt.

They managed to recover the onside kick, giving them one last chance. With seconds left, LaNorris Sellers’ pass was intercepted near the end zone by Crimson Tide cornerback Domani Jackson.

Jackson nearly stepped back for a safety but ran the ball out as time expired.

Here's what Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer had to say following the game:

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Opening Statement:

"Obviously a great college football game. Congrats to Alabama. They made more plays than we did at the end. Proud of the fight of our team coming down here, and no one was surprised by our performance. We expected this. We competed our butts off. All three facets. Everybody expected to win the football game, came up a little bit short at the end, but really, really proud of our guys. Credit to Alabama, like I said, coming off the loss the last week that they had and then going into halftime, we had momentum, and then they came back out and made more plays than we did in the second half."

Q: Shane, again, I believe LaNorris [Sellers] played pretty well pre turnover.

"Yeah, he can't go on the road in the SEC and turn over the ball."

Q: Shane, what does it say about your team to go out from the performance last week, to come down the wire and have a chance to win this game?

"It says that every week's different. And I mean, just, you know, people can put lines of what they want talk about us how they want to talk about us. It's amazing to me, from Kentucky, the way we perform. What you know, the perception of our team was really, really high, and then we had a crappy performance last Saturday, and all of a sudden the narrative is we ain't worth a crap. And that's not the case, we had a bad game last week. We played bad. We performed bad. We coached bad. Like against Ole Miss. I mean, we aren't a bad team, so we expected to win this game. Nobody was like coming in here at halftime doing cartwheels because we were in a in a tight game with Alabama. We we expected that, because we have a good football team. Life in this conference is really, really hard. There's really good teams you play week in, week out. So it says that we have a good team that competes their [redacted] off. Excuse my language, kids, and that's what we did today, and came up a little bit short. It says we had a bad day last week that we regrouped from, because we got a bunch of fighters in that room that love to compete, love to work. And I hurt for them, and that's what I told them in the locker room, fact is I've hurt for them because we're sick of this feeling, and they work too hard during the week to come in here on Saturdays and feel like that in that locker room across that wall right there as well."

Q: Coach, can you go over what that two-point play was?

"It was a play where we had a decent idea of what they were going to be in. They've had a couple two point plays this year. They've played a couple different coverages in their two point play situations. One's more of a zone, one's more of a max blitz cover zero type look. So we got the play that we thought was going to be good on both of them. I haven't seen the replay of it, but from what I was told, we didn't play with great technique and didn't block it great, but had a couple guys open. We just gave a little bit of pressure there, unfortunately."

Q; LaNorris had some early mistakes, but obviously bounced back and got y'all back in the game. What did you see from him to be able to keep fighting through that and to play like he did?

"Yeah, he's a warrior. Proud of him. He continues to get better each and every week. Come on the road. 23-of-31, 238 yards, ran the ball well, I thought he, he did enough for us to win the football game, and he'll continue to get better. And he'll tell you, we got to be, you know, be very can't hang on the ball quite too long. I thought there were a couple times today where we maybe hung the ball a little bit too long, but he gave us a chance and, and I mean the go on the road, in front of 100,000 and basically execute two, two-minute drives right there at the end of the game. We didn't finish the last one, I know, but to have the ball move in and operate efficiently, he continues to get better."

Q: What did you see from your defense, kind of, how they settled in after that first drive?

"Yeah, they did a great job. It's who they are. I was a little disappointing in the first drive, Alan, just we didn't, I don't want to say soft, but loose in our coverage. You know, they hit that one play where we were just loose in coverage. I think we were man free and gave too much cushion. And then there was another one where we talked all week about with Milroe, he's a dynamic quarterback when he scrambles, we've got to stay, we call it plaster, basically stay locked onto our guys if we're in man coverage or if it's zone coverage, pick people up and we turn the guy loose in that situation. But I think we came in at halftime we had sacked him four times. I think in the first. One of the keys to the game for us was to affect the quarterback, to affect Milroe. And we were, we had stopped the run. We had sacked him four times, we had created, a had picked the ball, created a turnover as well. So thought they did enough for us to win. Wish we could have finished that drive a little bit better when out of when Alabama got the ball back. You know, we got them to a third down situation, and we're in man free, and got beat. We were in a situation right there where, if they had gotten the first down, we wanted to let them score, because that's the only way for us to get the ball back, because they could start taking knees at that point. So if they had gotten a first down, we were going to let them score. But I wish we had not given up an explosive pass for a touchdown to begin with."

Q: With your guys, just a crazy amount of stuff that's happening. How did you keep your guys calm on the sidelines?

"Yeah, just knowing it's on the road in the SEC, we use a term in our program, Jordan, that we're fireproof, that no matter what happens, we're fireproof, and we can withstand it. And we talked about it at the hotel early this morning before we came over here, that we needed to have great poise, that you're on the road in front of 100,000 people in one of the greatest environments in college athletics, and there's going to be adversity, and we have to stay together and just push through and stay poised. And we did, you know, there was some crazy stuff, but our guys just kept hanging in there. And I thought, coming into the game, Jordan, that the first quarter was going to be critical. They're coming off at disappointment from last week and 11 a.m. kickoff, and it's a team that they're 21 point favorites too, and everybody's telling them they're going to kick the crap out of, it's their first day game, I think they played three night games. Here, we're coming off a disappointment where everybody's telling us how crappy we are. So to me, how the team responded in the first quarter was going to be big for the way the rest of the game went. We finished the first quarter. I think it was seven nothing after the first quarter, if I'm not mistaken. Was it? Yeah, so, I mean, it's not where we wanted to be, but we were in it, and then we just kind of kept battling back and stay fireproof and just continue to, you know, make plays and plays present themselves, and that's why what we've got to do a
better job of doing."

Q: Obviously a lot of criticism about the offenses performing from the offensive performance last week, and seems like things turned around really well that way. What's your assessment on how just that whole game went?

"Look at the tape. I mean, obviously the end of the day, you're judged by the final score. And 25 points was not enough today. But I thought our guys, you know, we had a poor performance last week, and people wanted to talk about it, rightfully so. We scored three points in the SEC. You should be criticized. But I'm a, you guys know me, I'm a glass is half full kinda of guy, was last week good enough? No. Was there a lot of really good to build off of with young players as they continue to get better? Yes, but at the end of the day, when you come on the road in the SEC you can't turn the ball over against really good football teams, and we created some. But you know, when you lose a turnover battle, it's going to be hard to win."

Q: Sort of piggybacking off of that, the wide receivers made some big plays. A lot of guys caught balls and Mazeo [Bennett Jr.] and Nyck [Harbor], they got a big touchdown. So was that nice to see this week?

"Yeah, no, it was good, you know, I told him in the hotel last night, in our team meeting, before we went to bed, that that the way that Alabama plays defense at our receivers, we're going to have some opportunities, and we were going to give them opportunities to to go make plays. And we did, you know, they made some plays down the field. There's some plays we didn't make down the field, but you know, they continue to get better. Mike Smith came in there and did some good things. True freshman. Mazeo came in there and did some good things, true freshman as well. So, you know, there'll be a lot to clean up. And obviously the end of the game from that standpoint, was disappointing, but those guys did a good job, and we for us to be the offense that we need to be. We just can't be ground and pound, triple option and throw dink and dunk, RPOs. We've got to be able to throw the ball down the field, and we tried to do that today. We had some shots called early that we weren't able to, you know, throw or connect to when we had to check it down, but we want to continue to be aggressive and give our guys opportunities to go make plays downfield. Thank you guys."

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