Coach Beamer today did a zoom call Q&A with students. I think it's awesome that we have a coach that sees a value in doing stuff like this. Anyways, I took notes on the questions and answers he gave. Obviously I tried to catch everything he said but it's more of a summary. He has revealed his favorite uniform combo which I know is very important to everyone, so consider this an exclusive scoop.
- How have you changed as a person and a coach since you left Columbia in 2011
- I’m still the same person and same values as far as trying to treat people right. Talks about how his family has grown a lot since then. When I left, I went to Virginia tech, and had a lot of roles to prepare me for this job right now. I then went to work with Kirby Smart, and learned how the Nick Saban tree of coaches did things. Then with Lincoln Riley, I learned a lot about a different style of recruiting.
- What about South Carolina made it your dream job.
- I was born in Charleston. I’ve always thought of this as home. Every summer I would spend the week in Myrtle Beach with my family as a kid. When I was 10 years old, I came to Williams Brice when Virginia Tech played there. I was blown away by the football environment. My wife has roots here, this is really the first place we lived when we got married. We’ve always loved it here. From a football standpoint, I understand the need to win here. And we have all the resources to do that. The location, the city, and everything here gives us a chance to win.
- What’s the best thing you learned from Spurrier that you hope to implement?
- I had always admired Coach Spurrier before I worked for him. What you see is what you get with him. Spurrier was very relaxed. I always felt like I was more stressed than he was on gamedays. I learned from him that you can approach the game with confidence. I also learned that you have to have good players to win, and we had great players under Spurrier (lists some great players).
- How can we as a student body help to support the football team?
- The positive buzz that you guys spread helps us feel positive. On gamedays, the student section is better than any student section I’ve ever been to. I’m not just saying that because I’m in a call with you guys. It was like that when I was here before, and it was like that when I was here in 2016 as an opponent with Georgia. The home field advantage at Williams Brice is unlike anywhere else.
- Will your style of coaching be similar to your father?
- I’ve got to be me. I can’t pretend to be Spurrier, Riley, Smart, or my father. I have been blessed to learn under a lot of great coaches. I would hope that I’ve taken good from all of those guys, and that has helped shape my philosophy. One thing that I think my dad was great at was being consistent with always trying to treat people right and being steady and consistent with that 365 days of the year. I would hope that I can emulate that from him.
- With your time with Lincoln Riley, you reached the CFP, how can we get to that level here?
- Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting. The team I was coaching at Oklahoma had a ton of future NFL talent. When you’re coaching in the SEC, if you win the SEC championship, you’re going to be in the playoffs. So we need to recruit to get to that level and take it one day at a time to get great players and win the conference.
- What are your go-to pizza toppings?
- You guys are going to be disappointed, but I’m a plain cheese guy. My wife hates me because I just like to order cheese when we go out to a pizza place. I may get sausage if I’m feeling crazy but that is rare.
- What is your favorite movie of all time?
- I’m not a huge move guy. The last time I actually sat down and watched a movie was with my son in March, who suddenly got into the movie “Twister”. I think it helped him to watch the movie knowing that we’re leaving that kind of weather behind in Oklahoma. I love the Goonies. I love Stand by Me and Good Will Hunting. Hoosiers. There is a bunch that I like, but those are the ones I’ll watch if they’re on. I also like comedies. Wedding Crashers. Old School. I actually showed a clip of Old School to the guys in practice the other day.
- How long did it take from the moment you got hired to the point where you moved your family to Columbia?
- Whenever I’ve taken a job somewhere else, my family usually moves with me by March after I get hired. I have an amazing wife that helped the transition. I was here in December, back and forth finishing out the season in Oklahoma. A few days after Christmas, I moved to Columbia for good. I was here in January and February without the family. They followed me up in March. We are renovating a house, so right now, we’re a family of 5 and a dog living in a 3 room condo, so things are tight now. But we plan on being here a long long time so we don’t plan on moving again soon.
- What is your go-to restaurant here in Columbia?
- We haven’t been many places honestly. We’ve probably been to Chipotle more than anywhere. We’ve been to Hall’s a few times. We’ve gotten takeout from Cola’s and Hometeam. We’ve been to Cantina 76. That may be about it. A lot of Chickfila and Chipotle. I should be asking you guys the go-to places. I haven’t had a lot of time because we’re busy with spring practice during the day, and most nights, I’ve been doing virtual recruiting visits with recruits from 5:00 to 9:00. I’ve also been to Blue Marlin.
- What do you focus on recruiting wise since that is a huge part of the game?
- It starts in the state. When I was here before, were able to get Jeffery, Gilmore, and Holloman to stay at home. There’s no reason to leave the state because you can accomplish all you want to do here. Then we got Lattimore the next year and Clowney the next. As you get better players, you win more games, and it goes from there. If we want to start competing for championships and beating “that team from the upstate”, it starts with recruiting. So I’ve been hard at work, having zoom calls for hours with recruits. We’ve done over 100 of those. We’re really trying to attack it from a recruiting standpoint. I’m attempting to build a good recruiting relationship with all the high school coaches in the state. I’m excited to start getting recruits back on campus to show them what a special place this is.
- What is the talent like on this years team?
- I like the group. Their work ethic is awesome and they’ve given us everything we’ve asked them to. We’ve got a good group of guys that are working hard. If you are good on the Offensive and Defensive line, you have a chance to be successful. Those two things go a long way in your ability to win football games, and I feel good about those units. We’ve got great running backs, and I feel good about our QB situation.
- Will there be a stronger emphasis on the run game after Kevin Harris’s great season last year?
- We want to be able to run the football. It’s a big emphasis on our team, running the ball and stopping the run on defense. People have an impression that Oklahoma was a big passing team, but really, our ability to run the football was what led to our ability to pass it. You have to have a balance. You have to be able to run and throw the ball. I don’t mean 50/50 on balance. I mean that when you want to run, you have to be able to run. When you want to pass, you have to be able to pass.
- Which position group do you think will make the biggest leap before now and opening game?
- I hope all of them. We need to get better everywhere. Probably linebacker and defensive back. I only say that because those are two positions where we are really thin right now. We’ve had some guys out with injury that we are eager to get back, and we have some key arrivals coming in that can help out. We need to get the current guys healthy and get the future guys in there, so we can make some good gains there this offseason.
- What principles will we see on the field on Saturdays? More special teams focus like your dad? More up-tempo focus like at Oklahoma?
- We have to be able to play great defense and special teams. There are definitely things we did at Oklahoma that I want to emulate. We played tempo at time, but we were not always warp-speed. Sometimes we would eat play clock and game clock up. In this league, you better be great on defense. Games in the SEC often come down to 1 score or less. That score on special teams can be the difference, so we want to be great in that.
- What’s your favorite uniform combo?
- I’m going to get in trouble because I’m definitely going to make someone mad. The players have already been on me about wanting to wear all black. I’ve had fans approach me and say they heard that I wasn’t going to let us wear all black, and I told them that that’s news to me. I’m more of a traditionalist, white pants and white helmets, which we wore a lot under Spurrier. Our players will tell you if you look good, you play good. So we’ll definitely take fan imput. But mostly, we want to focus on winning on Saturday.
- What team environment did you immediately try to implement when you got on campus?
- I don’t want to be a guy who sits in his office with the door shut. My door is always open and I’m always around. I want to be visible and be around for my guys. Covid has limited what we can do as a team, but we’ve been trying to find more and more things to do as a team. That’s one of the things I heard when I got hired, is the players wanted to hang out as a team more.
- Since you’ve been back, what has been the biggest positive and biggest challenge you’ve faced?
- The positive is the joy that I have to be in this position, and how much fun I have coming to work each day. Seeing the mentality of the players has been fantastic. They have come ready to work. We have a good group, they work hard and they want to be successful. There hasn’t been a bunch of negatives. There were some bumps in the road building a staff. But I’m being honest, it worked out exactly the way that I would want it to. I don’t mean this as a knock to any of the guys that left, but I look back, and I think “Thank God that that happened so that we can have this staff”. The fit we have here is awesome amongst the staff. Time management has also been a challenge for me, because there are so many things that have been coming across my desk, so I have to do a good job making sure I balance my job the right way.
