Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecock's reaction to the football team blowing another lead, thoughts on Shane Beamer and more. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:53] Okay.
[00:00:54] Welcome to episode 411 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. But I don't know if I have that in me today. I don't know If I got 18 good minutes in me today because I. I don't know, y'. All. I'm waking up here and it feels like it's freaking Groundhog's Day.
[00:01:17] Sitting here on a Sunday after blowing another lead and losing a football game, an SEC football game. On top of it all at home, on top of it all, I am fed up, I'm tired, I'm angry, I'm upset, I'm pissed off, and I'm just upset at the state of our football team. I'm going to start off the episode here with a fact from Brad Crawford over at 247Sports. Love or hate Brad. He has a treasure trove of information here.
[00:01:51] This game, the Kentucky, marks the seventh time under Shane Beamer that South Carolina has led by 10 or more points and lost the game. Three of those losses have come in their last four SEC games.
[00:02:07] If that doesn't tell you the state of our program, I don't know what does. Right now, the Gamecock's identity is blowing leads.
[00:02:16] It's everywhere you look. I think there's been. I think I saw it was that. That it was the three out of the four. And then I think it was just this speckling of these blown leads throughout, like, going back to the bowl game against Notre Dame. And it's just this bizarre trend.
[00:02:40] And I said it in a different episode after. After the Mississippi State game and after the Alabama game. And I'm saying it now like, we are just at a point that you have to make a change.
[00:02:53] And I know that there's politics involved in all of this and there's buyouts and things like that. And it's not just flipping a switch.
[00:03:00] The program is going the wrong way.
[00:03:04] And I don't subscribe to the thinking of, like, well, who else are you going to get?
[00:03:11] Because right now, the guy in charge is losing U.S. football games.
[00:03:16] You're beating Kentucky into the game. Like, this wasn't like you. Like the Mississippi State game where, like, they started so bizarre in the first couple of drives. It was the second quarter, and you go up 17 to nothing.
[00:03:33] Kentucky scored, they got on the board like, it was almost halftime, right?
[00:03:40] And yes, they. They kind of scratched their way into it. It was 10 to 17. And then, yeah, like, South Carolina goes down the field and you get that field goal at the half. And that felt like a moment when Carolina got that extra three points. You go up by 10 going into the half, and that drive was a little wonky. It felt like they could have pushed it a little bit more, but nonetheless, you still were able to get the field goal. And then you saw it. You saw it again at the half. Kentucky comes out and marches right down the field 75 yards and scores a touchdown.
[00:04:18] And everyone who I was talking to said, there's no way this is going to happen again. Right? But we all knew it was going to.
[00:04:27] Carolina goes three and out.
[00:04:29] And then the next possession is the turnover on downs, which again, is this bizarro play call where Mo Brown takes the direct snap and gets stopped the line.
[00:04:45] Like, is. Is the coaching staff allergic to running normal plays in critical situations like that? You have one of the better running backs in the SEC and Matt Fuller, you have Lenora Sellers, who's a monster physically and is strong and is athletic. And he, he was playing his butt off. Like, credit to the Norris. He, like, he had a bad mistake with the fumble, but he had himself a pretty good game, in my opinion. But no, you turn to the direct snap. Mo Brown, who. That's, that's not what Mo Brown does. He's not a running back. He's. He doesn't know how to read the holes and things like that.
[00:05:26] But it was. Even that decision where going for it to me felt reckless. And I think that's what some of this decision making has been by Shane Beamer. There's been just nonsensical reckless aggressiveness.
[00:05:44] And he, and he says it in the press conference, like, oh, we talked all week. We want to coach aggressive. Like, okay, that's fine. But. But situations matter. Context matters. It's like in the Alabama game when you had the chance to go up three and to physically be winning the game in that instance.
[00:06:02] But going back to this Kentucky situation here was fourth and two. I understand it. It would have been.
[00:06:08] It would have been a very long field goal, like, but it felt like you had an opportunity there to try and take the points.
[00:06:17] Because in that situation, you would have been up a touchdown. Like, yes, you're up six, right. So you know the point after somewhat of an afterthought in that situation, but you would have been up six points. Okay.
[00:06:33] And then when you give up the turnover on downs, what happened? It was the same thing in the Alabama game.
[00:06:43] Kentucky scored right away. So it's like the opposite of complimentary football here, where the, the offense is unable to score points and the defense gives up the points immediately and then you're down right now. Yes, we responded the right way. Like, the team showed some fight.
[00:07:03] But again, like, these football gets boiled down to these, like, handful of moments.
[00:07:11] You know, there's a lot of back and forth in most games. There's momentum swings and, you know, you know, you have your punch. You know, both teams are going to score and whatnot. It's these critical moments and that. It's just seeming that Beamer doesn't understand it.
[00:07:29] You know, I got to give a shout out to my, to my wife here. When we were watching the game, she said something that I thought was profound.
[00:07:37] And it seems like Beamer just thinks this is the 2024 team.
[00:07:42] He thinks this roster and the makeup of this team is not what it is. Now.
[00:07:49] This group of players like is is marred by what happened last year, and the pressure to turn things around is surely trickling down to them.
[00:08:03] 2024 was a veteran team that was built through adversity, you know, and some of those guys went through the coaching change even, and they were old, experienced, grown men. Demetrius Knight had a kid and was the leader of that defense.
[00:08:21] And then you had the plucky upstart quarterback and some of these younger receivers that, like, wanted to prove themselves.
[00:08:28] That's not this team.
[00:08:30] You can't be reckless on fourth down and then think that your defense is going to just stand 10 toes down because they haven't, they haven't all year.
[00:08:41] So that moment to me was critical.
[00:08:45] Like, again, if you're gonna go for it, why are we doing this fake tight end nonsense? That's a play you run, like in the red zone on a second down when you're trying to catch someone napping. Not in a critical juncture in the game, almost at midfield.
[00:09:05] And then we fast forward and the game is tied. You go to overtime.
[00:09:13] Carolina does all the right things, right? Like you, you, you did hold Kentucky to force overtime.
[00:09:22] You know, it. It was a critical turnover late right where you really felt like you, you could have gotten some points there.
[00:09:31] And that play where Nick harbor incompletion on third down, like, yes, we weren't in scoring range at that point, but the team was kind of moving and you had the, the time. The clock was on your side. If you convert that, you, you, you control the game and you can get down into the field goal range and kick a field goal and try and win the football game.
[00:09:58] But Nick Harbor, God love him, he just hasn't progressed as a wide receiver. Jumping up on and trying to body catch that is just not how you try and catch that. I didn't, I did not mind the play call. The throw was, was Adam. It was, it was a pretty darn good throw. Again, Lenore's played pretty well.
[00:10:17] That's an instance where the receiver let him down and that's happened multiple times. Nitro Toggle had had another big drop.
[00:10:25] Supposed to be the prize possession from the transfer portal. I'm just like shaking my head now. It's just because like everything has gone sideways. But nonetheless you get into overtime stressful enough as it is, the team does their job. They got the touchdown and then much easier Kentucky gets the touchdown as well and they go for two and they get it a huge blown assignment that that tight end or receiver, whoever the hell he was, was wide open when Kentucky got that two point conversion.
[00:11:03] And it's just, all of it is just these little things that again have just plagued this team this year and, and reaching back into last season, these like mistakes, communication errors, unprepared, reckless decision. Like all of was the largest comeback in Kentucky football history.
[00:11:29] Which is kind of sad. 17 points, right? But that's now at least two that I can think of. Top of my head, historic, literally record breaking comebacks that South Carolina has been on the wrong end of A and M last year in Kentucky this.
[00:11:49] But it doesn't matter and it's just the program is at a point now where it's, it's. I don't, I just don't even have the words for it. It's great podcasting, I know, but like I think, I think the team has an identity problem and you know, the players and coaches, they're going to say that they believed that they could win and you know they can. They're going to say that they, they felt prepared going into this one and you know, it was a good game. Like, you know, again, these couple of mistakes end up, this is how you end up on the wrong side of it. You know, a couple mistakes, the, the, the turnover on downs, the fumble, like that's how you end up in these overtime games on the wrong side of it when you really could have been winning and should have been winning, right?
[00:12:44] Like three points at a certain point earlier in the game.
[00:12:48] You don't go to overtime, you win in regulation.
[00:12:51] But I just think that there is just this sense of, like, this team doesn't have, like, the.
[00:13:02] I don't know, like, what it is. Like, I'm not.
[00:13:06] It's not that they, like, expect some of this to go down, but it's like they. They don't know how to stop the bleeding in these situations. And to me, that's on coaching.
[00:13:17] And I think that even in losses, I think Shane Beamer is too rah, rah.
[00:13:25] And I think at halftime, he's a cheerleader for these guys. And he's probably saying, like, hey, we expected to be here. We expect this how the game to go, instead of telling them to, like, no, be better and continue to push. I don't think he's a challenger. I don't think he's bringing a challenger mindset to this football team.
[00:13:43] And I think you're seeing that when adversity hits, there's not this, you know, we're gonna dig deep and we're gonna. We're gonna, you know, look at ourselves and be better, you know, and it's always credit to the other team and things like that. Like, no, like, discredit to us.
[00:14:06] And so, yeah, here we are sitting again after a incredibly disappointing showing. And, you know, I just think you. You have to move on. Like, it's. The program is not in a serious state right now. The team is not in a serious state. And, you know, when you go out there and you try and correct some of these things by bringing in Kendall Briles and bringing in some of these other coaches and the approach in the portal was a little bit different this year, bringing in, like, more veterans and things. Like all these things were supposed to. Supposed to work when they haven't and it hasn't been going the right way. There's. There's one person to. To take the blame for that. And I think it's just time to move on.
[00:14:58] I think the program deserves better, the fans deserve better, the players deserve better. Right? Like, they were in a fight in this game and, you know, yeah, there's. There are some drops we can point to and, like, you can always do that, you know, but it's like, it shouldn't have gotten to this point.
[00:15:17] Right? Like, the game shouldn't. Shouldn't be there and, like, it's just super frustrating to see, you know, and it's just a sad state of things.
[00:15:29] That's really all I got. You know, it's just. It's just a bummer, you know, I'm just.
[00:15:36] And you're seeing the reaction out there in the fan base, on social media and everything like that.
[00:15:41] You got some folks who are really, really upset. And you know, I put out the video where I was like, I've said this before where you can like the man, but you can hate the results.
[00:15:51] And now it's like, you know what, like, people are saying, like, forget the caveats, like, this is a results driven business and just look at the results. Black and white the program and the team is going in the wrong direction and it's just been blips of good historically. So, yeah, very, very disappointing effort and result here.
[00:16:19] Gamecock's got one more week until the buy going down to the Swamp next Saturday. Of course, we'll preview that next episode. Florida just took a big L. We'll see, you know, what that game shakes out to be. We'll see what happens throughout this week. Obviously, if there's a big, big change, I will do an emergency pod and we just have to see what, what, what goes on here. And that's like another thing, like Beamer was saying, like, oh, like this team has responded to adversity before. Like, what?
[00:16:49] When? How? Like, are we watching the same thing?
[00:16:54] It's not good.
[00:16:56] It's not good. Let's do a quick weekend recap and then I will get y' all outta here. Looking back on Friday here, Women's volleyball took the loss to Oklahoma 3 to 1. Equestrian rolling. Beat TCU 14 to 5. Women's soccer tied Mississippi State, nil. Nil. Women's cross country came in third at the Joe Payne Invitational.
[00:17:21] Men's soccer tied West Virginia Saturday, one to one.
[00:17:27] And with that, y', all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media. Twitter or X is Cox Gamecocks. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecocks. And please, like, subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'. All. Go Cox.
