Knock on wood: How Shane Beamer, USC have succeeded when time is on their side
Shane Beamer isn’t superstitious — but he might be a little ‘stitious.
“I hope you just found some wood to knock on like I just did when you said that,” Beamer quipped of being informed his South Carolina teams are 5-0 when granted extra time to prepare for a game. “Hope you didn’t jinx us, man.”
The book is still out on Beamer’s regime just a year and a half into his tenure in Columbia. Through 19 games, though, his staff and squad have proven an ability to gameplan successfully when afforded extra time to prepare — such as for season openers, bowl games and after bye weeks.
Saturday night, that gets put to the test against a Texas A&M squad that’s ebbed and flowed throughout the 2022 campaign and is as vulnerable as it’s been since it started playing South Carolina annually in 2014.
“A&M is a challenge because they are very multiple and you don’t really know what exactly they’re gonna be in even on first and second down,” Beamer continued on his weekly Sunday teleconference. “They’re multiple in regards to the three down, four down, their personnel packages they’re gonna be in. Defensively, they give our offense a lot to prepare for.”
USC handled lower-level opponents in season-opening wins over Eastern Illinois and Georgia State the last two years. Those were, at least on paper, a given.
Where Beamer’s staff deserves its most credit is wins over Florida, North Carolina and then-No. 13 Kentucky, each of which showed that uncanny ability to make use of extra time.
South Carolina faced Texas A&M just before last season’s bye week and was throttled 44-14. The Gamecocks subsequently lost starting quarterback Zeb Noland to a minor knee procedure that week. Enter quarterback Jason Brown and a Florida team on the verge of seeing its coach, Dan Mullen, sent packing.
USC controlled UF from the jump, racing to 284 yards on the ground in a 40-17 route of the Gators that eventually cost Mullen his job.
Beamer’s bunch followed that up with a complete dismantling of North Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl two months later. That came, in part, from springing quarterback-turned-receiver Dakereon Joyner on the Tar Heels en route to a 38-21 win that wasn’t as close as the score might indicate.
“Credit (offensive coordinator) Marcus Satterfield; that wasn’t me,” Beamer said at the time. “Early on, even before Jason made his decision (to transfer), we felt like we needed to get D.K. going in there. We had a month getting ready and just the element of being able to make them defend the quarterback run game.”
“Through these past two weeks, with D.K. at quarterback, I ain’t gonna lie, the first couple days, he was a little rusty because he wasn’t a quarterback in a long time,” tight end Jaheim Bell added after the bowl, smirking. “I just kept putting my trust in him and let him know that his throwing mechanics was gonna get better. And through these two weeks, they got better.”
Then, of course, there was the monumental win over Kentucky in Lexington last week.
South Carolina wasn’t supposed to have extra time, but the impending landfall of Hurricane Ian forced USC officials to move up a scheduled game against S.C. State from Saturday to Thursday the week prior. That gave Beamer and his staff two-plus days of added gameplanning for the Wildcats.
It paid off.
USC didn’t manhandle Kentucky, but it controlled the tempo against backup UK quarterback Kaiya Sheron, who started in place of an injured Will Levis. A pair of Wildcats turnovers and a resurgent Spencer Rattler carried the Gamecocks to arguably the most consequential win of the Beamer era.
“It’s not always pretty,” Beamer said after the Kentucky win. “But to see the joy in that locker room — we’re not shocked. This was as confident a football team coming in here as any game that I’ve coached here at Carolina. ... Our guys expected to win that football game.”
There are few programs in America steeped in as much tradition as Texas A&M. Every blade of grass in College Station seems to have some tie-in to the university or its football program.
South Carolina, of course, has never beaten Texas A&M in eight meetings. Technically, there’s even a trophy up for grabs on Saturday — though no one in Columbia would have reason to be aware of the Bonham Trophy.
Something has to give when the Gamecocks and Aggies meet at Williams-Brice Stadium.
If you’re garnet and black-inclined, heed Beamer’s advice — find some wood and start knocking.
This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 9:54 AM with the headline "Knock on wood: How Shane Beamer, USC have succeeded when time is on their side."
