Everything Shane Beamer Said After Loss To Tennessee

South Carolina Football coach Shane Beamer lamented missed opportunities, and need for injuries to heal up quickly after loss to Tennessee.

Opening Statement

"First of all, congratulations to Tennessee. They played really, really well. That was an awesome college football environment tonight, and they made plays. We're gonna look back at this thing, and there were a lot of missed opportunities.from our standpoint, you know, third downs and fourth downs that we didn't convert. When you go 2-14 on third down and 2-5 on fourth down conversions, you make it tough on yourself," Beamer said. "Proud of our players [and] the way they battled. Fourth down and inches, and we can get six inches on a fourth down. [That] is disappointing. Field position was tough all night."

Was [Tennessee's] defense doing something that you didn't expect?

"Not really. We knew eventually because of what [Xavier] Legette has done that teams are gonna -- not necessarily double him, but you know, they kinda did what they do, and tried to take Xavier Legette away, and we've gotta be able to run the ball. We've got to be able to protect the quarterback better. We were trying help with protection; We were chipping, we were trying to do everything we could from that standpoint, still gave up too much pressure. We just gotta execute better."

Seemed like it was hard to get most of the pass-catchers going tonight. How critical would it be to get Juice [Wells]back for the Florida game?

"Not just Juice, but all these other guys. We played AB tonight and he was a little banged up. We gotta get better at wide receiver in a hurry. That means these young freshmen-- I know y'all are tired of me saying it, we gotta play them more, and Tyshawn Russell, Nyckoles Harbor, we've got to play them now, and we've gotta get better at wide receiver, there's no doubt about it. We've got to get healthy at wide receiver - We've got to continue to develop depth and get better at that position."

On Tree Babalade and Trovon Baugh's development

To start two true freshmen offensive linemen on the road in the SEC in this environment, first of all it's pretty dang cool, and proud of them to be able to go out there and battle like they did," Beamer said. "We're limited, we have seven offensive linemen that are out right now, and between Jaylen Nichols, Cason Henry, [and] Markee Anderson, those are guys that either have been starters for us or we expected to be starters by this point in the season as well, so kinda is what it is."

On Injuries

"Nick Emmanwori got the wind knocked out of him, and I think he ended up being able to come back. O'Donnell Fortune, I don't know. I think he's good. He's had that knee that's been bothering him, so he's been a little bit limited. He's fine. The big loss we had was TJ Sanders. I don't know if y'all noticed, TJ didn't play the whole second half basically. He was cramping a little bit, but then he got a shoulder [injury] that was bothering him, so if he played any in the second half, it wasn't much. So that was a big loss as well cause Nick Barrett's banged up a little bit with a foot [injury]."

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