How Shane Beamer & Co. Discovered Mario Anderson Jr.
When South Carolina running back MarShawn Lloyd announced on December 12th that he was entering the transfer portal, the Gamecocks' fanbase, and likely the people within the building were stunned by the news. It was a stark and quick-hitting reality for Shane Beamer and his coaching staff, who suddenly needed to find another running back in the portal, as they were also set to lose Christian Beal-Smith due to eligibility exhaustion.
Within a week, they found their guy in Newberry Transfer Mario Anderson Jr., and the staff, according to Beamer in his press conference this past Thursday, weren't deterred by where Anderson came from.
"It starts with being willing to take someone from a smaller school. Unfortunately, I think there [are] probably some schools that say, 'we're in the SEC. Why would we look at a running back from a division two school, no matter how successful that school is?' There's great football everywhere," Beamer lamented. "High school recruiting is an inexact science, and there's a lot of great players that should be playing in the SEC, but for whatever reason ended up at different schools, and every situation is different."
Shane then went on to talk about the importance of looking at the player's film, which in the case of Mario Anderson Jr., quickly caught the attention of multiple staff members.
"I know some of our recruiting staff people early on had seen his video and was like this guy's got something to him and is a really good player," Shane recalled. "We had Pete Lembo, and Clayton White watch his tape to get their perspective on him, and you saw a skillset, you saw the things you wanna see out of a running back."
Shane and the rest of the program quickly knew that Mario could help the team, leading to an eventual visit to Columbia and a subsequent offer from the Gamecocks.
"The contact period opened up when he was in the portal, and he came and watched one of our bowl practices before signing day came," Beamer remembered. "[We] got him around all of our people in our program, and they had a chance to get to know him in a short period of time, and then I think I called him the next day and offered him a scholarship here at Carolina."
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