Shane Beamer recaps season opener against Old Dominion

all right um first of all much respect to Old Dominion for the way they came in here and played knew that going in I know people want to talk about their group of five and what not that's a really good football team we knew that coming into it uh said that this week um we know all about the Sun Belt Conference and what they've done to teams across the country in games like these so they certainly had our full respect coming in here and much respect to Ricky and his team and I think they're going to go on and win a lot of football games this year they play hard they play tough they play physical they make things tough on you in all three phases which they show tonight uh having said that unacceptable from us from that standpoint in the way that uh we perform starting uh with me certainly happy to win and uh and and uh we're celebrating in the locker room winning is hard uh so some people may not like that we celebrate wins around here so we're celebrating in that locker room because our guys have worked too damn hard since January uh to not go in there and have some fun and celebrate a win because we only get 12 of these that are guaranteed uh as well uh you know sloppy without a doubt and uh particularly it really in all three phases a lot to clean up obviously offense defense special teams did some good in all three phases and certainly did some bad in all three phases so we have to uh coach better without a doubt uh we knew going into this game we're a young football team we started a true freshman left tackle we got a r freshman quarterback we were going to have to live through some Growing Pains you know disappointing that we just had some of the self-inflicted things that we had tonight uh in all three phases it had nothing really to do with youth we got to be able to you know get lined up and execute and things like that so that starts with me having said that though proud as heck of our team a lot of teams would have found a way to lose that game uh as ugly as it looked at times and with some of the adversity we dealt with and some of the things situations we put ourselves in I thought we responded to adversity each time whenever something bad happened to one phase the other phase picked them up and responded whether it be I think after we gave up that deep ball early in the game I believe we came right back down the field and got points on the next drive maybe uh to start the second half we took the ball down there and got points when you know we had a uh turnover on offense Nick we talk about complimentary football we had a turnover on offense Nick haror made a unbelievable play running that guy down and getting him out of bounds which then allowed odonnell to get the interception a play or two later you know so complimentary football and have each other's backs and certainly wasn't pretty we got a lot to clean up like I said but we'll um we'll learn from this one enjoy it celebrate it learn from this one know know that it was nowhere near good enough uh to uh to to nowhere near good enough but we're a team that's young and we're going to continue to get better each and every week and expect us to be a lot better next Saturday up in Lexington uh injuries our injuries um uh emry Floyd and Brian Thomas didn't play tonight nothing longterm should be fine for next week um Jerry Brown got banged up a little bit uh it's a lower body injury I think he'll be fine I haven't talked to Clint I think he's going to be okay and other than that I think we came out of it in pretty good shape questions Shane 22 carries for lenar so he just got off the field but how much just kind of from rough view was like that was designed and then maybe he he kind of took off all his own where he could have stayed in the pocket little a little of both a lot of it was designed um you know we don't want to run him 22 times a game like we did tonight certainly but we're going to utilize him in the Run game but we've got to continue to be better around him and um you know we we uh ran for 174 yards which is good we carried the ball 56 times we've got to be able to throw the ball better no question about it but a lot of those runs David though they were either called runs for him or or some were uh reads or scrambles whatnot as well would you have liked to have seen more passes called or thrown I don't maybe some of those were rpos were uh not necessarily I mean we've got a we've got to be able to throw the ball better than what we did tonight and we will but we've also got to be able to execute when we call passes and we had some drops we had some you know routes that we didn't run quite correctly we had some protection issues we had some misreads you know by the quarterback so we've all got to you know coach coach better there's no question about it in the passing game but you know I can you know if you if you were able to you know keep the ball for 36 minutes like we did tonight and and run 56 times for close to 200 yards that's not a bad formula but absolutely we have to be able to throw the ball better than we did I think on some of those incompletions maybe Lenor seemed a little high just from from my perspective do you think maybe he just Juiced up a little bit nervous I don't know um I think he um you know certainly there's some throws he'd like to have back I think he'll be the first to tell you he missed some we threw a post early in the half or in the second half that had uh the route underneath it I think was was probably when he sees the tape wishes he had gone there and some of those maybe a high throw but could be the wide receiver or tight end not running his depth potentially at the right route so a lot of um a lot to to clean up no question about it and and uh and we will I mean you guys I've told you this and and would I have liked to have thrown the ball tonight more more than 114 yards absolutely but I also know that we're going to get better throwing the football we had three receivers that played a lot of snaps um tonight that weren't even here during spring practice and camp and Dre and Nick so those are three receivers that we didn't even didn't even get here until June and you know I'm not making an excuse we need to be better we've had two months with them but we're going to continue to develop that chemistry with the receivers Mike Smith played a lot tonight at tight end he wasn't here during spring practice you know and and uh transfer receivers that have come in so we're a we're a work in progress and we'll continue to get better uh throwing the ball running the ball playing defense playing special teams for sure coach can you speak on how the lightning delay not only affected the fans but also the flow of the game um I don't know about the fans I thought they were great when we came back out after the lightning delay and they were loud and they were loud in the fourth quarter when we needed them to be loud and cause ODU some problems there at the end I appreciate the ones that stuck it out and and created energy in there when we came back out of the break having said that we got to perform better when we come back out of the break and uh you know I believe we we we did if I'm not mistake and I think we came um uh what we do we came out of the break and I think we got we had the uh yeah we came out of the break we had the a drive and then we ended up punting I think at the end of the drive but um I thought we handled it okay came in we it was being able to use the iPads now in college football is great because you can literally go through every play that's happened up until that point and Coach it and figure out a plan coming back out of the break and I thought our team really came out with with energy and handled the break well said all the mistakes can't be attributed to the fact that you played you know a lot of young guys what are some of the big teachable uh points that you'll have for your young guys this week leading kenty yeah and I don't want it rick to come across and I'm making excuses for that because we played a lot of young guys yes we did it's a factor but um we're we're not the only School in the country playing true freshman and we've got to continue to help them and put them in position to make plays and I told those freshmen I told Mike Smith true freshman tight end I told Mao true freshman receiver told um uh who else played as a true freshman tonight on on Josiah Thompson started at left tackle you know I told those guys coming out a half all right you ain't a freshman anymore now you've just played a half of SEC football and and we're past that excuse or whatnot so um they'll get better and learn from it proud of them for coming in there and handling their first college game like they did but I think the biggest thing is just the the let's not beat ourselves and I thought we we had too much of that tonight whether it be drops penalties uh pre- snap penalties um not lining up the right way things like that that starts with us as coaches and we'll do a better job of of getting that cleaned up and coached up this week hopefully you mentioned the Josiah you had you know a bunch new guys on that offensive line you run for you know almost 175 yards but just over three yards a carry what did you make of the o line performance and and Rocket combined I know the narrative might be offensive line struggle the offensive line played their butts off tonight and all the gurus out there that want to break down the video the offensive line played pretty good are there going to be some plays that they want to uh that they want back absolutely we were atrocious tonight perimeter blocking and that was a key with the way that Old Dominion plays defense our guys outside the offense offensive line the tight ends running backs receivers they've got to be able to block and you're not going to run the ball successfully against this team if you're players outside your five offensive linemen don't do a great job and we were nowhere near good enough tonight at that offensive line has to be I'm not sitting here anointing them the Joe Moore Award winners right now but I was proud of them for what they did tonight and and there'll be plays that they want to have back there's no question about it but it's easy to sit there and say well offensive line struggled no the offensive line did a lot of really good things and played physical as heck Beyond just the takeaways and obviously the sacks what did you see from your defensive line tonight was that rotation about what you had in mind when you kind of put this room together in the off season yeah um we got just hold the team in there we got to we as coaches got to continue to do a better job of getting players in the game I thought we had you know a lot of guys that played uh way too many snaps tonight where we've got to be able to rotate guys and keep them fresh and that's on the players too to have great weeks of practice where we feel comfortable putting them in the game but um it was you know last year you guys know we had a three-man rotation at at defensive tackle and tonight I think we we had a fiveman rotation and easily could have gone to to six if we uh if we had needed to we've got more depth at the edge position as well so I thought those guys did a good job for the most part and and um you know they uh they hit obviously two big plays on us the the Deep ball in the first half and then the quarterback run on fourth down which it should have been a sack uh if we just execute you know properly as well but that was disappointing those two explosives but for the most part I thought they controlled the line of scrimmage and and did a uh did a nice job what about what did you see from Cal Canard and Dylan Stewart they really disruptive tonight yeah we uh I thought they were really good kind of goes back to we have more guys that can rush the passer than what we did last season we have um new we have Kyle we have who was a transfer obviously coming in JT gears back healthy um Dylan st's obviously a true freshman and did a great job I thought they did a really good job we just gave Dylan Stewart a game ball in there cuz he had he made a heck of a play um on the uh strip sack right there on that turnover to to allow us to obviously that was a huge play in the game and then uh you know I don't like analyze the stat sheet before I go in there and figure out who gets game balls um I knew Kyle Canard had played a pretty good game I made the mistake I didn't give him one and then actually TJ Sanders grabbed me and said please like trust me on this like you better give him a game ball and he was righte what two and a half sacks four and a half tackles for loss so pretty good night for Kyle um he's done a great job and like the way those guys play and then we've got to continue to keep developing depth and bring those guys along as well Desmond we put him in there at the end of the game he's got to be able to continue to help us and we have depth there on the uh on the defensive line uh as well so we gave those guys game balls we gave you a game ball Jeff crane congrats on your first win back as a Gamecock so we gave you game ball but you weren't in there for it but we'll make sure we get that to you you're out there doing your job so as well but glad you're back and appreciate you as well coach the two uh offensive touchdowns for drives of like two and six yards and some third down struggles tonight as well when you kind of evaluate everything from the offensive end what's kind of the first thing that you think needs to kind of change in order to be able to sustain some drives we got a block on the perimeter better than we did tonight period uh if you're going to play receiver here you got a block and if you're going to play tight end here and you're not in the passing game you got to block and I'm not saying the effort was poor uh I'm not saying it was all bad but I think there's we're going to look back at the tape and see that there's a lot of plays that if we just execute a little bit better in the Run game on the perimeter uh we'll we'll be we'll be a lot happier um having having U said that you know being able to sustain drives I feel like we we had some drives that we got down there and then shot ourselves in the foot and um but I'll say this too I mean we told them at halftime we knew at halftime we were stinking it up in a lot of ways and we told the offense in front of the team look all eyes are on you we get the opening kickoff we want to see what you do here you know we haven't been at our best and we're let's see let's see what we do on this drive and we had a drive that got three points I went for that fourth down backed up in our own territory and I told the offens line because I trust them and believe in them and we were able to get that first down and then we had a third down conversion on that drive to Dre over on the sideline which was a big play and then I hate that we weren't able to finish the drive with points but you know we moved the ball we just we got to finish with touchdowns and and um and uh you know I looked up uh you know one time you N I won't even get to that we got to finish for touchdowns this is the first game you guys were able to use the helmet communication how do you feel like that Dynamic went offensively speaking with you and Dal and do you feel like it had any impact on like were there any issues at times or anything that maybe led to the offense just not being as efficient as maybe you would have liked no I think it was I don't think it really had much of an impact to be honest with you I mean we called every play where Dow's talking to lenorris so it it was helpful uh that was one of the things I got a lot that I wrote down Jack from this game that we got to talk about tomorrow but that was one of the things that I talked about was just um I think we can be even better utilizing that in some ways offensively and defensively you know so it's a first game we worked out the Kinks in a lot of ways I thought we were great with the iPads being able to coach and adjust the helmet communication certainly was a game changer but I I do believe on offense and defense we can uh we can be better there just with the communication there's no question about it hey coach I think it was after the first scrimmage you talked about the importance of generating turnovers y'all had four 14 points off of turnovers just talk about how big that is and are you likeing how the defensive unit is playing in the takeaway game yeah no I mean anytime you have I guess we had turn takeaways on defense and back-to-back possessions to finish the game I believe um with Dylan and then and then Jaylen as well so um yeah huge when you look it's it's proven our our record around here is is stupid good when we win the turnover battle it's like really good if we just tie the turnover battle and uh so when you can take away the ball like we did run the ball uh I know our record now is pretty good when we run for over a 100 yards it was already and then have win the explosive play Battle and you're going to have a chance to be successful but certainly to me the number one statistic in football is turnover margin um and we we obviously won that tonight and it was absolutely huge now having said that we've got to perform better in all three phases to not have to rely on takeaways you know to win the football game easy either but when they had to they stepped up and like I said nobody panicked and thought we did a great job the fake field goal was that something you had seen in the tape pleading up to the game or something you'd seen during the game that you want to try that was something that we had seen leading up to the game I don't think Hunter my son's in here but he knew that it was a family secret but he knew the first time we had a a field goal on the left hash we were going to fake it and um he knew all about it so hopefully he was alert when it happened but yeah it was something we had seen on tape that it really should have been more open than what we thought um we kind of wanted to let them run through untouched and DeAndre jwes blocked his guy a little bit better than we wanted him to block his guy so the guy that Kai did a heck of a job making the guy miss the guy that ke Kai made miss you know we didn't anticipate him being there but you know DeAndre was got just a little too much on the guy kind of knocked him outside a little bit that's who Kai made Miss but yes it was something that on uh on Monday morning when I was watching tape of their field goal block team from last year I saw it went to Joe D camillis and said hey let's put this in and rep it this week see how it looks and told him in our staff meeting this morning first time we kick a field goal on on the left hash left middle we're going to run this so hate that it came back Kai made a heck of a play and Brady made a heck of a catch so we named it after Brady too being from Ball State so it's a good little play all right thank y'all yep Hope game one went well for you guys up in the Press Box all smooth okay sweet thank you