South Carolina's Shane Beamer broke his foot in frustration after loss to Florida
"I was frustrated and kicked something I shouldn’t have kicked"
South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer injured himself in frustration after his team’s home loss to Florida on Saturday.
The Gamecocks led 37-27 after scoring with 9:11 to go but allowed two touchdowns during the final five minutes to lose 41-39 to the Gators. On Tuesday, Beamer was asked about his limp entering his weekly news conference and revealed that he kicked something out of frustration in the minutes after the loss and broke a bone in his foot.
“I broke my foot on Saturday, so I’d rather just get it out there and say it and not have you all speculating and then after the game on Saturday in Missouri you ask,” Beamer said with a smile. “I called [athletic director Ray Tanner], told him, made sure he was OK with it and he died laughing when I told him so obviously there’s not a lot of empathy from him.”
“It was after the game and certainly that was a gut-wrenching, emotional loss and I was frustrated and kicked something I shouldn’t have kicked and thought I was OK but the adrenaline from the game wore off and before anyone starts the narrative like, ‘the head football coach is frustrated and lost his poise and all that.’ No, I care. And I care about these kids and I was really upset on Saturday night because I didn’t do enough to help them get over the hump and win the football game. Don’t think I have to have surgery but there is a broken bone in my foot, it hurts like you-know-what but I’ve got to show toughness and fight through it. Been one of those years.”
The loss dropped South Carolina to 2-4 ahead of its Week 8 game against No. 20 Missouri. The Gamecocks were one of the surprises of the SEC in 2022 as they beat Tennessee and Clemson to finish the season at 8-4.
This season, South Carolina has struggled keeping opposing teams out of the end zone. The Gamecocks are 109th in the country in scoring defense and have given up at least 30 points to four of the five FBS opponents they've faced. Missouri enters Saturday’s game averaging 34 points per game.
Beamer also joked that he’ll have to make sure he’s not taking any pain medication on game day to prevent an inexplicable special teams call.
“The problem will be not being on any kind of pain medication — we’ll be like faking punts from the 2-yard-line on fourth-and-30 because I’ll be loopy if I’m on pain medicine so we’ve got to make sure that I fight through with no pain medicine and can make calls,” Beamer said.
