Why South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer told freshmen ‘we are past that excuse’

COLUMBIA — South Carolina football won Saturday’s season opener against Old Dominion 23-19 at Williams-Brice Stadium, but it was far from a perfect game for the Gamecocks.

Coach Shane Beamer made it clear in his opening statement after the game that South Carolina will celebrate the win, but thought almost all three levels of play were full of mistakes.

“Unacceptable from us in the way we performed, starting with me,” Beamer said. “Winning is hard … sloppy without a doubt, on all three phases, lots to clean up … did some good, did some bad, so we have to coach better without a doubt.”

South Carolina was led by redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers at quarterback, and had true freshman on both sides of the field. Dylan Stewart, Josiah Thompson, Mazeo Bennett, and Michael Smith all played their first college game.

“We aren’t the only the school in the country playing true freshman and we have to put them in position to make plays.” Beamer said. “I told those guys coming out of half, you ain’t a freshman anymore, you played a half of SEC football, we are past that excuse.”

What Beamer did draw attention to was the Gamecocks’ self-inflicted errors, like dropped passes and penalties. The Gamecocks were called for two penalties that eliminated scoring chances, and only completed 10 passes for 114 yards. Sellers fumbled on a drive in the first quarter, and knocked over his own player while trying to block for running back Juju McDowell.

“Let’s not beat ourselves, I thought we had too much of that tonight,” Beamer said. “It start’s with us as coaches and we will do a better job of getting that cleaned up.”

Lulu Kesin covers South Carolina athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email her at lkesin@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @Lulukesin