Beamer Highlights Importance Of Perimeter Blocking

In week one, poor perimeter blocking on outside runs led to an abysmal rushing performance against the Georgia State Panthers. Many theorized South Carolina couldn't run the football after pass-heavy game plans over the next two weeks.

Against Charlotte, however, the rushing attack saw their best outing since the end of last season, as they would rush for 295 yards and score six touchdowns as a collective unit. A huge key to the ground game's success was the perfectly executed perimeter blocking by the Gamecocks, which Shane Beamer spoke about in his Sunday night teleconference call.

"They were awesome [Saturday] night, probably the best perimeter blocking game that we've had offensively since I've been here. I mean, they were fantastic, they really were… that play [involving Christian Beal-Smith], I mean, he did a great job. [Austin Stogner] was already blocking the guy, then CBS came in there and cleaned it up, and I think CBS went up there and got another guy… but if you watch a lot of those runs from [Saturday] night, you see the perimeter blocking downfield," Beamer noted. You know, Jalen Brooks had the play where he made the guy miss over on our sideline on a little quick screen or quick bubble…, and that's because I think it was [Stogner] who was over there on the sideline; he was blocking. So all those guys were really, really good; they competed. We work at it a lot in practice. We've challenged them in practice to be better at it, our two best perimeter drills [we] do on Wednesdays every week during the season, and probably our two best days of doing that in practice were the last two weeks."

After speaking on the question of perimeter blocking for a few minutes, Beamer then took the chance to emphasize what uniform offensive blocking will do for the run game.

"You guys probably get tired of me saying it when everybody's complaining about our offense and not being able to run the ball. We say it's not just the offensive line; it's all 11 [players], well you saw that [Saturday] night. Yeah, the offensive line did a great job, but I'll tell you who else did a great job was our tight ends [who] were fantastic in the run game [Saturday] night, and on the perimeter for the runs, and then the receivers were fantastic… Really proud of the unselfishness of our wide receivers and tight ends and the way that they competed in the run game [Saturday] night."

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