Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, a piece of Gamecock trivia and a discussion about Gamecock football. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:53] Okay.
[00:00:54] Welcome to episode324.5 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001 and happy June, y' all.
[00:01:09] Shoot, it's been a long ass week. I mean, at least for your boy. It's one of those deals where every day I was like, what day is it? And it felt like it was the day after that. Like, sitting here on Thursday, woke up today, thought it was Friday on Wednesday, I thought it was Thursday, and so on and so forth. Couldn't tell you why, but just. Just one of those weeks. There's something in.
[00:01:34] Something in the air. I don't know, the moon, stars, all that crap. But long week. Hope y' all had a good one here. School's out, and it's officially summertime.
[00:01:46] Not a lot of Gamecock sports going on. We do have Stanley cup and NBA Finals, but we're kind of teetering on that edge of getting into the dog days, which is fine. It's good time, relax, get out of town, do all that, watch mlb. Just, like, chilling. But, yeah, hope y' all had a good weekend already. To seize the weekend, we need to make that a saying. Not seize the day, seize the weekend.
[00:02:12] You can catch me trying to trademark that. Speaking of seizing the weekend, I brought this up previously in past episodes, but I did open an Etsy store with some fun koozies. The first one I released was South Carolina themed. It's a koozie that has orange is a stupid color on it. Fun little phrase there. Go check it out. It's on Etsy. It is Shop ctgc. So you can kind of figure out the acronym, but Shop CTGC on Etsy, get some koozies, get ready for tailgating season and everything like that. But let's jump into things here. Not a whole lot going on, but before we do, I have a piece of Gamecock trivia from my handy dandy Gamecock calendar for y' all. So here we go.
[00:03:02] Name the arena, plus the city and State where the 2022 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Final Four was held.
[00:03:14] Whoa.
[00:03:15] Wow.
[00:03:17] I can picture it. I feel like. Like. I can picture the banner with, like, the stars on it. I think that's 22.
[00:03:26] I don't think it was Seattle.
[00:03:29] That's kind of an obscure city for one of those to be in.
[00:03:34] I. I'm not gonna get I'm not gonna get the arena. I'm not gonna get the arena. Is it. Was that in Minnesota? Like Minneapolis? Like where the. Where the. Where the T. Wolves play. That's why there was, like, the stars. Let's see.
[00:03:47] Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'll take that. I'll take 50% in that. That's a pass. This is. This is not. We're not grading on a curve here. This is a pass fail assignment. Yeah. How about that?
[00:04:00] That. That was a total. That was lucky. And then the last. The next X1 they had with the next banner, was that Nashville?
[00:04:09] I don't know.
[00:04:10] Oh, no. San Antonio, I think. I don't know. It's tricky. It's hard to keep track. We've had so many banners.
[00:04:17] It's a good. It's a good brag. It's a good brag to have, but shout out, shout out. Women's team, always shout out. Don Saley. I saw that she's actually going to be on TV as a analyst leading up to WNBA game. So I don't know if that's weekly or anything off. So really cool to see just more exposure for Don Staley. I'm sure she'll bring up our program and just love to see it grow in the game one step at a time. But let's jump into things here. Like I said before, not really a lot going on. We're in that in between, period, where there's obviously no sports going on, but on the football side of things, you're. You're kind of ramping up towards camp, you know, but you're still not there yet. We haven't had SEC media days, so couple of news and notes here. Baseball has been adding some talent. So, you know, y' all know my thoughts on the staff and everything, but we will give them a little bit of credit here. They are working the portal. They've brought in some talent, and then they did a pretty good job of retaining some pieces. And as well, Parker Merlot was a big piece that announced he is staying. So, look, these guys are gonna try, you know, they're gonna still go out there and try to field a competitive team, and I don't think there was ever a doubt maybe about that. Right. I think in my rant a couple episodes ago, I didn't bring up recruiting, you know, and I think they probably have a pretty good case. You know, there has been a good amount of people that have entered the portal, so there's room on the roster for you. But even beyond that, you know, South Carolina is a good program with good facilities. It's just a matter of is this staff willing to adjust based off of what happened last season? And that is the question. So that's just the, that's just the state of where I'm at with the baseball team is I want to really get excited for some of these portal additions and I want to really be excited for some of the retained players that are there because you want that, especially retained players because you want to root for guys year over year.
[00:06:40] But I just still, it's just still so recent where this season from hell happened and the retaining of Paul Minary, it just, it's a deal where I'm in wait and see mode, you know, Prove it. Like, all right, get the roster that you want, go work the portal how you want, the type of player that you want. Go ahead, do that. That's great.
[00:07:05] But what are you going to do with that when they get on campus? That's the question. So we got a long, long ways to go until those guys take the field. So maybe my tune will be changing by then. Probably not. But nonetheless, it's good to see that that staff and program is being active on the recruiting show.
[00:07:27] But a team that is not too far away from taking the field is the football team.
[00:07:33] So over these next few weeks and months, football is probably going to be the dominating topic that we talk about. It's the closest major sport we have.
[00:07:42] We are entering talking season.
[00:07:45] You have coaches doing some recruiting now, they're having camps and things like that. And you're just kind of trending towards something tangible that you could talk about. So got a few points here that I wanted to touch on. Talking about the season, talking about the state of things. Not getting too in depth just yet. Just kind of my thoughts. What's top of mind about Gamecock football here? Something that I checked out the other day.
[00:08:11] The over under, at least according to DraftKings, is set to seven and a half. I took that. I've taken the over in every season of Beemer's tenure. And all but one, he has brought a return on my investment.
[00:08:27] And it was just exciting to see like just in general, all the different teams with their, with their records, their over under win totals and things like that just, it does make it feel that much more real. But it got me thinking, seven and a half. That's what the odds makers have is the over under. And that's gotta be the highest in the Beamer era, right?
[00:08:50] I think it's either been like five, five And a half or six, like maybe there was six and a half. One year, his second year maybe. But I don't even think because it's always been overachieving and the overachieving was just being pretty good. It wasn't even being great. So seven and a half, even at the under, if you're at 7, that would probably still be a disappointment to a lot of us fans based off of what happened last season. But if we take a step back a little bit to have a seven win regular season, you probably do at the end of the day, take that right, because not too long ago we missed a bowl game and you know, before Beamer got here, we were just scraping and clawing hoping to make a bowl game. So for the over under to be ahead of that I think is pretty remarkable. And it's a testament to everything that this staff is doing. And if you've been paying attention to the recruiting trail, if that's your thing, you know that Beamer and the whole staff has been making waves on the recruiting trail. And for those of y' all who don't follow it too closely, there have been a flurry of blue chip players who have a lot of hype. You know, we're talking four or five star guys who have received crystal ball predictions by these, you know, so called experts here to go to South Carolina.
[00:10:24] So of course it's a long way from getting these guys to campus. But the fact of the matter is South Carolina is a major player on the recruiting stage right now and you know, it's just a wave of momentum. And it was impressive to see what Shane Beamer and his staff were able to do when teams were kind of underperforming or just kind of hitting that benchmark of getting like six wins or so. You know, you saw a guy like Dylan Stewart, Nick Harbor, Josiah, you saw these guys commit when the teams were not necessarily great. And the sentiment generally that was put out there was that these guys were taking on a challenge and Beamer was showing them the culture and everything that South Carolina has to offer on the surface. But I think that pitch was probably come and be the next great one. Come and be that first wave of change that turns this thing around.
[00:11:32] You know, I remember a few years ago, it was that noon game at home against Georgia where we just got absolutely waxed.
[00:11:42] I want to say Nick harbor was at that game as a recruitment and I thought to myself, my goodness gracious, like, you sure picked a doozy to have him come by. And I still think that that Was just a moment for him in that group to say, you know what, we can turn this around, like, if we come together here and we do this thing, like, we can stop these types of games from happening. And I think that that's what you've seen, and then that brings you to going into this season, right? I think recruits are. Have seen it, but now we're talking about going into this year. And it just made me think, like, is this the most legitimate hype that Gamecock football has had this decade?
[00:12:27] I mean, I think it has to be right.
[00:12:30] When you think about it, this is the most. And I'm saying legitimate because going into the 23 season, so Spencer's last year, that 22 team, ended the year so well with, of course, Tennessee and Clemson, you had, you know, coaching change and you had the. The. Some of the guys, like, opting out and things like that for the bowl game against Notre Dame didn't really go our way. But going into 23, there was excitement, there was hype.
[00:13:03] But I do think deep down we knew that that team was flawed. We knew that it wasn't as deep as you would have liked.
[00:13:12] The playmakers who made that end of the year run possible, a lot of those guys were gone. Talking about a Josh Van.
[00:13:20] So the excitement going into 23, I. I think I said it going into that year, it was the most excitement that we had in a while because we had momentum at the end of the previous year like we really hadn't seen.
[00:13:36] But going into this year, you have legitimate reason to think that this team can carry a lot of the good things that we saw last year. I mean, you look at having anchors in Lenora Sellers and Dylan Stewart, just pillars on both sides of the ball, and Lenoris, who knows where things will lie at the end of the year with his future, but you look at a guy like Dylan Stewart, who is young and, you know, even with Lenoris, you're now going to go into his second full season. You're just seeing the makings of sustained success.
[00:14:16] So you don't want to put the cart before the horse. Going into this year and thinking about what could be and, you know, postseason, all that Jazz, but you can still have a successful, good, solid season, one where you almost surely will start the year ranked. And if you can end the year ranked, too, that's something.
[00:14:42] That's something that we haven't done in a long time.
[00:14:46] And so, again, goes back to recruiting and everything that this staff is doing and the players on the roster just continuing the Momentum and it's going to be a challenge for this staff to just make sure that the team remains humble and hungry. And I think that they have the character on this roster and on this staff to make that happen. Where, you know, hey, we had a hell of a year last year, but you remember what happened going into 23. You can use it as an example. We had some people patting us on the back and we took a step back. We don't want that to happen. We came up just short last year in some of our goals. How can we achieve that now?
[00:15:26] And it's just, it's starting to feel like this is what was promised under the Beamer hire. I've been a fan of his pretty much since the hiring. I know a lot of discourse happens amongst our fan base about him.
[00:15:42] I think right away you saw an improvement on the culture.
[00:15:46] I think you saw an improvement on how the program interacts with the community, how the players interact with alumni, how he interacts with fans. He being Beamer and across the board, I think you see better development and that speaks to the culture. So you have that right. But now I think what you're seeing is kind of what the initial promise was, where it's a staff that is clicking on all cylinders and who are great developers of talent and who are attacking the recruiting trail successfully and vigorously and winning and thinking differently. I think that was something with the Beemer higher. It was, you know, we're going to look at this thing a little differently. We might have to zig a little bit here while we've tended to zag with the rest of the conference. And I think you can look at some of that and the recruiting that Shane Beamer is doing, particularly in the DMV area.
[00:16:51] Like, of course you're going to base this team in the Carolinas, your border state in Georgia. You'll never say no to a good player from Florida. But going to a different area of the country that is talent rich in the DMV area and putting a footprint and trying to set up a pipeline to the SEC has paid some dividends. Tree Nick harbor isn't Stewart. Stewart's from there and you're seeing some of these blue chip athletes from that area have interest in South Carolina.
[00:17:30] So it's just really, really cool to see and you know, looking at this year without getting too much into schedule, like we're going to get a pretty good idea, I think week one of what this team looks like going up against the Power four team in Virginia Tech. Now, if week one from last year tells us anything. It's. Don't freak out if it doesn't look great.
[00:17:53] Old Dominion had us on the ropes, and we ended up winning and then getting on, getting on a streak.
[00:18:00] But I think it's going to be a good measuring test.
[00:18:04] And if this team can start off hot, you know, week one is in August, technically that game, but, you know, let's lump it into September. That first. That first month of the year, let's call it those first four games.
[00:18:20] If you can start off on the right foot, look out. Because as we saw last year, you know, it's the same thing with Beamer every year. The teams tend to get better as the season progresses, and Beamer knew that he had to start better this past year, and the team did.
[00:18:40] So maybe there's a few things that they did in last offseason right about this time to tinker with the schedule, tinker with the camp, whatever it was, and hopefully they can carry some of that over and maybe have some different ideas. And that's something that this staff and this training staff is always looking at. They're never settled, and I love it. So if you can get into that groove quicker with a team that, you know, you're not breaking in many new pieces. Well, no, you are. You have a younger defensive front, particularly, but you don't have a new signal caller like last year.
[00:19:21] You know, your skill position players are not pretty much all brand new like they were last year.
[00:19:27] Your offensive line has a lot of continuity. Your defensive backfield has a lot of continuity. You have an edge rusher in Dylan Stewart, you have. And also Brian Thomas. You have defensive tackles who have been there. So the point is, you might be able to start a little bit faster than you did last year, week one, just because there were so many moving pieces last year, new guys getting on the same page.
[00:19:54] Whereas this year, Lenoris can step in and, you know, maybe feel a little bit more comfortable right away.
[00:20:03] So it's all very interesting. It's a fun time of year just to start thinking about these things and taking stock of where the program is at and everything.
[00:20:11] And it just makes you want football.
[00:20:13] But with that, y' all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox gamecox.
[00:20:22] 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.
