Gamecock head coach apologizes, says South Carolina wasn't able to "do much of anything"

Beamer talks with Dabo Swinney before the game.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sun Nov 28 08:48:05 GMT-04:00 2021

COLUMBIA – South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer gave credit to Clemson’s “lights out” defense in the Gamecocks’ rivalry loss to the Tigers, but he also apologized to his fans for the lackluster effort.

Beamer asked his fans to show up and support the Gamecocks against Clemson in the annual rivalry game. Clemson shut out South Carolina 30-0 in dominating fashion in Williams-Brice Saturday night.

“Congratulations to Clemson. They played great, especially defensively. They played lights out defensively. There's a reason they held Georgia to three points,” Beamer said. “That was the defense we saw out there tonight. We certainly didn't play well ourselves. I want to apologize to our fans for that performance. It starts with me as a head coach. That Gamecock Walk, I don't think I've ever been a part of anything like that in my coaching career. I appreciate what our fans did. We challenged them, and they were awesome. I'm sorry we didn't play better for you."

Beamer said the players were hurting after the loss but will look to use bowl prep as a springboard for next season.

“We hurt. There's a lot of tears in that locker room right now. This is a critical month for us coming up. I'm so happy we get another month together as a football team,” he said. “We have to get better and continue to improve. This is just the beginning of Carolina football. We're only continuing to get better. We're going to continue to work so we don't have nights like these."

He then said the Gamecocks failed in all phases of the game.

“Not good football. Not good coaching, not good playing. Too many mistakes offensively and defensively in that first quarter,” Beamer said. “We're not into moral victories around here. Have to play better, have to coach better.”

The Gamecocks drove 72 yards on the game’s final drive and had a chance to kick a field goal to avoid the shutout, but Beamer said kicking never entered his mind.

"No, not really. I didn't even think about it. We were trying to score a touchdown,” Beamer said. “We didn't want to get shut out, but I'm not really into kicking field goals to lose 30-3.”

The Gamecocks managed just 43 rushing yards on 20 carries while the Tigers managed 265 rushing yards on 43 carries. .

"I liked our plan going in. I really felt like we were going to be able to run the football, and we weren't able to,” Beamer said. “We weren't able to do much of anything. The first quarter was tough from a field position standpoint. I thought our defense was good. We wanted to stop the run and we didn't do a good enough job of that. A lot of the problems early were guys trying to do too much and pressing. I was worried about that coming into the game, because they wanted it so bad. We didn't do a great job of tackling in the first half."