Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Gamecocks is brought to you by the Mason Jar, New York City. The Mason Jar is the official gamecock bar for the New York City area. Fans and alumni of USC can come by the Jar for some great barbecue, cold drinks, and of course to watch the gamecocks in any sport, all while surrounded by South Carolina memorabilia. If you want to get a slice of Game day in Columbia, all while in the Big Apple, head to The Mason Jar on east 30th street. All right, here we go.
[00:01:14] Of cock talking gamecocks brought to you by the Mason Jar in New York City. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 18 one to 2001 and hope you all had a great weekend out there. Gamecock Nation, it was a busy weekend in Gamecock Nation was a very positive and productive weekend. Last couple of days has been very fun to be a gamecock. Not that it ever is not, but it was a lot of good stuff, a lot of vibes out there. The vibes are high and we are inching closer to our Christmas break, new Year's break, all that jazz. I just simply can't wait to just sit back, relax, drink a lot, eat a lot, have some presents, the whole nine.
[00:02:04] I'm a Christmas sucker. I love Christmas. I'm a softie for Christmas. Now it's going to be normal. Podcast schedules this week, today and then Friday. I might have to change it up a little bit because of the holiday, doing some traveling and things like that. So going to maybe twist things around, but I'll let you all know on Friday. And then also on social media as well. And then also might have to throw in my bowl bonanza special. So got a few moving pieces around. I'll let y'all know how everything shakes out at the end of this week. But today and the rest of this week is normal. And anything that's not normal is Shane Beamer right now because it is Portal madness. He is like a mad scientist here. Gonna recap the weekend here for you guys here. And yeah, Beamer is one determined man and he is determined to improve this roster. And I kind of touched on this last episode, but I think it just really speaks to his mindset as a coach.
[00:03:18] We are in this transfer Portal era. I don't see any drastic changes happening anytime soon. And you see pretty much all college coaches utilizing the Portal in one way, shape or form. There's a couple who are resistant to it, whatever. But Beamer was able to look at this past season and obviously the results spoke for themselves. We were not good enough. But instead of tossing that up to a couple of bad breaks here and there, injuries here and there, he looked at himself in the mirror, looked at his staff and said, you know what, the roster we have right now is simply not good enough. We're not in a position to grow from where we are. And there are depth issues at critical positions. There's issues with explosiveness, there's experience issues. And he went out and is fixing that, and he's fixing that with quality players, with experience who fit the culture. And I don't think that this success in the Transfer Portal, I don't think it's a coincidence that you've seen more concentrated efforts and frankly, better efforts in the Nil space for USC Garnet Trust and Carolina Rise. They're doing great things, the Garnet Trust, especially with the Million Dollar match campaign. And so I think when you see that momentum, it does translate over to momentum in recruiting and ideally wins. And again, this Nil effort, this Nil space, that's not just football. Football gets all the big eyes, but when you contribute to this stuff, and when these collectives have their focus, it's football, it's men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, really, any sport can benefit from name, image, and likeness efforts. So it's been a crazy couple of days, and at one point this past weekend, south Carolina was ranked number two in the Transfer Portal recruiting rankings. So that just speaks to the quality and type of players that Shane Beamer is bringing into our program. I think as it sits right now, it's like we're number four, maybe five, but point being, we're still towards the top, and it shows that he's not satisfied. And it feels like every time I turn around, we get a new welcome home Tweet. So it's a lot of fun here. So let me review some of the most recent commitments from South Carolina. I think there's still one that it's rumored he's going to come here. It's pretty much sure, but he himself has not announced, so I'm going to hold off on that here. But first off, starting with running back Joanne Howell, he is transferring in from SC State. This actually broke late Friday, or late Thursday rather. I missed it on the last episode. But Havel will have three years of eligibility remaining. He had a very impressive season last year, 809 yards, seven touchdowns, with 149 receiving yards and two scores. I mean, he runs hard, he has great vision and brings in a really unique mix of youth, but also clearly production. And with his addition with Rocket and then Addaway. And then you look at the current guys on the roster. The running back room is really spaced out nicely where you got a couple of guys who are older and then, you know, Rocket, who's kind of a one and done, but then behind that you'll have Addaway as a know, Juju is an older guy, but then you have Howell, DJ, Braswell, and then you also have the recruiting behind them. So it actually is spaced out nicely, where hopefully next year we're not in a position like we were like this past season, right? Where all of a sudden you're looking around like, this room is so thin. So hopefully this was sort of a course correction for Shane Beamer and Coach Hardisley in the running back room. But this is an exciting pickup. He was very productive at such a young age, so in theory he'll get bigger, faster and stronger at South Carolina and will only improve.
[00:08:01] Next edge. Rusher kyle Canard is transferring from Georgia Tech. This is a huge pickup, maybe the biggest one of the weekend, one of the bigger ones of this whole portal class in a big time area of need. Canard is six foot, 5238 pounds, had a very productive season last year with 32 solo tackles and six sacks. I think one game, it was like three or four sacks in and of itself. And we know that the defensive end position was lacking consistent production this past year, so Canard should be able to provide some of that. But now you'll have him, JT, Gear Des and Dylan Stewart. And so when you look at that, it's a pretty solid too deep in the defensive end group. And Jordan Strawn this past year, he was doing all he could, but again, depth was a big issue. And I also forgot about Brian Thomas Jr. So now you're looking at multiple guys in that room, in that position group who can be productive. I think Canard brings that veteran presence. He seems to be had. It was like just sacks wise. It was like two sacks, two sacks, two and a half, and then he popped for six. So hopefully the best is yet to come from Canard. But then you're also looking at some high ceiling guys who are developing like Gear, Dylan Stewart's. Really exciting coming in as a freshman, and that is something that can help this team. You need to be able to get after the quarterback. The lack of tackles for loss was very concerning from this defense for the vast majority of the year. So hopefully we'll see a little bit more of that. Three, three, five this upcoming season. That seemed to work, but when you are four down, you have multiple guys who can get after the quarterback. This was a big time pickup for Clayton White and his group there.
[00:10:10] Next, tight end Brady Hunt is transferring from Ball State, bringing some of the maxin to the SEC. Got to love the mac. Hunt did not play last season because of an injury, but in 2022 he tallied almost 500 yards and five touchdowns. Now the tight end position, you might be sitting there saying, well, do we really need to bring in another tight end? You have Josh Simon, he's obviously tight end one. Then you have Connor Cox and Nick Elksness. You're also bringing in highly touted freshmen as well. But I think what you want to do here is make sure that you have experience in the two deep and guys who have complementary skills.
[00:10:56] Elk and Cox they'll probably be one, two or they might respectively back up Hunt and Simon. But regardless, I think having experience in the room is a good thing and I think you want to make sure you have guys who can do it. All right. Simon's going to be more of your pass catching tight end cox, he's going to need to develop Elk. I think he has a high ceiling there, but he didn't play a whole heck of a lot last year and that's after transferring in from not playing a whole heck of a lot. So you want to be able to be in a position to have someone who you can turn to who has that experience. That was Josh Simon this past season and it paid dividends when Trey Knox went down. Also, Shane Beamer is not in a position to turn down talent and I don't think South Carolina is in a position to turn down. Know you look at the best programs in the country, they don't turn talent away. They load up on talent. And if they have too many good guys in one position group, that's a good problem to know. And Shane Beamer knows he has to win this upcoming season. So if there's a guy in the tight end position who maybe that's not a screaming position of need, but he's productive, you have the scholarship spot, you feel that you have the roster spot. Yes, absolutely. Bring him. Know, there's a lot of talk about quarterback. Do you bring in a quarterback when you're really excited about Lenore Sellers? That's kind of who that last welcome home we're waiting on to be official here. Potentially as a quarterback, I think you do bring one in because you want to have as much talent as possible. You can't be reliant on one person to develop in the way you want them to or one person to have that amazing year that you're hoping to because then if that doesn't work out the way you want it to, you might be up that creek without a paddle. So bring in the talent that you can build the depth. It's not going to hurt. And if you believe in Nick Elksnis or a Connor Cox to be that guy, well, then he should beat out Brady Hunt and Camp. And if he doesn't, then you know that he actually needed some more time to develop.
[00:13:24] Nevertheless, here one more for you all. Defensive back Gerald Kilgore is transferring in from Tennessee Tech. That is right. He is the brother of current gamecock Jalen Kilgore. So some brothers in arms on this team here. Kilgore recorded 37 tackles and two and a half tackles for loss in his only season at Tennessee Tech. I like this pickup, again, because depth in the defensive backfield was an issue last season and I view Kilgore as versatile where he can play.
[00:13:57] Maybe he develops into a true cornerback, but he can also play some safety as well. But yeah, y'all, I mean, needless to say, it has been a very busy and productive couple of weekends here from Shane Beamer and staff rebuilding, reshaping, reloading this roster and this is the way of the world now. And I think for a team like South Carolina, the transfer portal and everything, it allows you to sort of jumpstart your program in general. But also if you have a season where things didn't go your way and you feel that you still have a core group of guys who are good, well, now you can easily, with the flip of a switch, bring in some guys to complement those players. We're talking about a potential QB, one in Lenore Sellers like, okay, well, what would put him at a bad disadvantage? Not having playmakers around him, because if there was no transfer portal, he would not have a whole heck of a lot of playmakers around him right now, guys graduating and things like that. So you bring in three running backs who are good on top of a couple of guys already on your roster, two wide receivers, a tight end. It wouldn't surprise me if we bring in some offensive line help, although help is on the way in the recruiting class, I think we might see another wide receiver as well. And then on the defensive end, what did you need? Pressure on the quarterback. So let's go get a big time defensive end, a couple of defensive linemen as well. So it's been very impressive to see what Shane Beamer is doing. I think we've gotten burned in the transfer portal a little bit and I think that really reared its head this past season and Shane is learning from that. How do we correct it, how do we build for the future as well? I think there's a temptation in the portal to get guys who were just seniors one and done maybe two years. There's a couple of guys Shane has brought on that have two, three years left and that's really exciting here. So we'll see if there's any other movement from the program this week. But it's been a very fun couple of weeks there, adding new people to our program. And welcome home to all y'all. But moving on here to games that have actually been played talking the men's basketball program and you've heard of the courthouse, you've heard of the cardiac cocks, but how about the cardiac courthcocks? Because that is exactly what we got Saturday evening in Columbia as the Men secured a 9th win after dodging Charleston Southern 73 to 69. And I said before the game that I was confident, but I was cautious to be too confident. But I don't think any of us were expecting it to be such a close game as late as it was. South Carolina was up three at the half and the Game was a two point contest under ten minutes, but the Gamecocks were able to open things up a bit only for Southern to try and claw back, but ultimately Carolina held them off to notch their latest victory. Charleston Southern, I mean, they had probably their best showing of the entire year in this game. And South Carolina was also playing pretty clean basketball, so it combined to have the two teams exchanging shots and having things stay close. But nonetheless, South Carolina found a way to win in this game and it speaks yet again to the composure of this team to stay the course and find a way to win.
[00:17:52] Some player highlights for you all here BJ Mac, 16 points. Michi Johnson had 15 points and Talon Cooper, nine points and five rebounds. Up next for the gamecocks is a game Tuesday night at home and the guys are taking on Winthrop. Winthrop is currently eight and four and towards the top of the big south, the Eagles. As a team, they shoot the ball pretty well. They're averaging about 79 points per game, so that is something to definitely be mindful of. They are coming off a loss in their most recent game, though. Micro to the game is force empty possessions. Winthrop averages about five points more per game than Carolina, so the Gamecocks are going to need to slow the game down and play very sound defense and force Winthrop to take poor shots and come up empty.
[00:18:48] On the women's side here Saturday afternoon they were part one of the doubleheader at Colonial Life and the ladies cruised past Presbyterian 99 to 29. I mean, that's just a clinic. That is just a clinic there. I love how dawn gets the team to respond after a hard fought game that they had last weekend. Dawn gave Raven the game off to let some others get quality playing time and it was really all gamecocks from the word go. Here some player highlights. Here Malaysia for Wiley, 18 points and seven rebounds, chloe Kitts eleven points and ten rebounds and Tessa Johnson had 13 points.
[00:19:34] Next game for the ladies is Tuesday night at Bowling Green. Bowling Green is currently six and two and this is going to be an interesting road test for the gamecocks here. Not that I expect a crazy environment in Bowling Green, but more so that it's unfamiliar territory up there, right? You're going to an area of the country where you typically don't go against a team that you don't really play a whole heck of a lot. It is an interesting road game, so you're going to have to be able to adjust quickly and play your game. And my crow to the game here is play through Camilla Gardozo because I simply don't see Bowling Green having someone that can keep up with her. But let's go. Cox big week and should be a fun one here, but with that Y'all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media. Twitter. 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.
