Rich Rodriguez Talks Relationship With Beamer Family, Shane's Pedigree

South Carolina Football coach Shane Beamer will face off against a coach in Rich Rodriguez who's relationship with the Beamer family goes way back.

This coming Saturday, South Carolina's Shane Beamer will be coaching against Jacksonville State's Rich Rodriguez for the first time ever with both of them being at the head post of their respective programs. Both coaches have been on opposing sidelines only twice in their careers, once when Shane Beamer was a Graduate Assistant at Georgia Tech and Rodriguez the Offensive Coordinator at Clemson in 2001, and again when Rich was the head coach at West Virginia, and Beamer was an assistant coach at Mississippi State in 2006.

Although it's been 17 years since the two coaches squared off against one another, Rich Rod made it known at his Tuesday presser that his relationship with the younger Beamer goes way back to his time in Morgantown, when he coached against his father in the Big East Conference.

"Yeah, I know Frank [Beamer] first because we competed against each other. He [was] at Virginia Tech, and I was at West Virginia, and then we were on various, you know, trips together, Nike trips and stuff like that. So I've known Shane, and then when we had a place in Georgia, they did too. So Shane and I played golf together and just think the world of him as a person, as a coach, you know who he is or his family's all about. I think he's just phenomenal."

Although the Gamecocks third-year head man is going through a bit of a down year in Columbia this Fall, Rodriguez made it a point to say that he's already done a lot of good for program and that he didn't get brought just because of his last name.

"They've had a couple tough games this year, like I said, but he's done a lot of great things there, and he'll be a a successful head coach for a long time. It's in his DNA, you know, but it's also who he is. I mean, he didn't. He didn't get the South Carolina job because his last name was Beamer. He got the South Carolina job because he earned it, and he earned a lot of it. He earned it the way he recruited and the way he coached there, you know, 10 or 12 years ago. He did a great job for Coach [Steve] Spurrier there."

It's clear that there's a lot of respect between both coaches and considering the indirect ties they have, it only makes this weekend's Battle of the Gamecocks even more intriguing than it already was to begin with.

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