Shane Beamer Comments on What He Expects From Quarterbacks Behind LaNorris Sellers

With tomorrow’s Garnet and Black spring game approaching, Gamecock fans are ecstatic to see their team compete for the first time since December. One of the most exciting aspects of spring games is seeing the competition between players who may not start during the upcoming season, but will impact players down the road. Perhaps the most anticipated position for fans to watch each spring game is the battle at quarterback.

While the impressive freshman campaign from LaNorris Sellers last season has vaulted him as the team’s undisputed starting quarterback and leader, developing the backup quarterbacks is critical. With the uncertainty of each season, these backups never know when it will be their time to shine. With the offseason addition of the highly-touted recruit, southpaw quarterback Air Noland, it’s obvious that coach Shane Beamer places high value in finding the next in line to take the place of Sellers. On Tuesday, Coach Beamer met with the media and gave them an update on the performance of his backup quarterbacks during spring practice.

“Yeah, you know, [we are] seeing who can kind of operate the offense and operate efficiently. There’s a really good battle going on right now behind LaNorris, with primarily Air [Noland] and Cutter [Woods] and Dante [Reno] and those guys. All three of those guys were so much better on Saturday in our scrimmage than they were the week before. Not that they were bad the week before, but they took another step, and they’re just getting more and more comfortable. There’s less installation now because we’ve got so much of the offense in. It’s just repeating what we’ve been doing.”

While the players have been getting better, per coach Beamer’s comments, he knows that taking the leaps he expects them to is no small feat. South Carolina has always been a gritty, hard-nosed school who has valued hard work. As the old adage goes, “steel sharpens steel.” The young backups have been subject to physicality during the past practices. Despite allowing their quarterbacks to get in the ring against the defense, coach Beamer knows that ultimately it will maximize their ability to be game-ready and make their already impressive defense better.

“We made the quarterbacks live on Saturday in our last scrimmage, meaning, normally, they’re wearing a green jersey, and they get tagged. We let them get tackled and hit on Saturday. We didn’t do that with LaNorris, but LaNorris did when he was a true freshman. But we did with Air, Dante, Jimmy (Francis), and Cutter for half the scrimmage, maybe. That was good for them, just for those young quarterbacks. No, it’s not seven on seven. You can’t just sit back there all day, like you’ve got to get the ball out on time. But then also for our defense to be able to tackle those guys in space, and those guys did a nice job handling that. So they’ve gotten better. Want to see just who steps up and can make plays, and just take another step and get better. But that’s a very, very even competition right now in a lot of ways. And let’s see what happens this week in practice and then going into Saturday and kind of see where we are coming out of spring.”

The Game is set to kick off at William-Brice Stadium at 7:30 eastern time. As most schools, the Gamecocks will not be televising the game.

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