Beamer, Spurrier and the dichotomy of how to treat an ugly South Carolina win

Coaches talk to their team through the media.

Alabama coach Nick Saban is a master of this. When the Tide is dominating, Saban stands behind the podium critical of everything. When Bama struggles, Saban is more empathetic, trying to build his guys up with encouragement.

Shane Beamer is no dummy. He knows his teams Understands when he needs to divert them from complacency and when they need a fire lit under their derriere. Which leads us to what he said just minutes after the Gamecocks avoided disaster against Jacksonville State on Saturday.

“There are going to be people that live a miserable existence,” Beamer said postgame, “that are gonna say, ‘Why are you celebrating a 10-point win over Jacksonville State?’ Well, that’s why you’re not on a team. That’s why you’re not in a locker room.”

At Tuesday’s weekly press conference, Beamer did not let the sentiment die. In what became a 12-minute opening statement, the Gamecocks’ head coach — unprompted — used 900 words to elaborate on the idea one can be happy with a 38-28 victory while remaining disappointed and critical of the performance.

“As ugly as it might have been, the Gamecocks won the football game Saturday,” Beamer said, “and there were a lot of teams across the country that did not win their football game on Saturday. That was the point I was trying to make. If we won on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and you were unhappy and miserable, then you probably do need to find some joy and celebrate wins a little bit more.”

Beamer was talking to the fans, the ones flooding message boards and social media with displeasure with a defense that hasn’t been consistent since the season kicked off.

He was also talking to his players, the ones who should be OK to enjoy their accomplishments for a few moments before thinking about everything they need to fix.

And many things can be true at the same time. The fans — including Beamer’s own family — who thought his fake-punt call against JSU was ridiculous are right. Those who think the defense needs to show some growth if they have any chance of beating Kentucky or Clemson are right. Those who aren’t sure why the Gamecocks can’t seem to move the chains on third down are correct.

Beamer understands all of those points. He probably agrees with all of them.

But, again, he was talking to his team through the media. And he knows the consequences when a more-direct tone is used.

“I have been a part of teams,” said Beamer, “where the head coach walked into the locker room after a win and absolutely blistered that team and they didn’t win a game the rest of the year. I said that I would never do that as a head coach.”

Back in 2014, just minutes after the then-14th-ranked Gamecocks beat an atrocious Vanderbilt team by only two touchdowns, coach Steve Spurrier sat behind a microphone and kicked dirt on his program.

“The way we play is embarrassing. I told the guys, ‘It’s embarrassing the way we play,’ ” he said. “And I’m the head coach of these embarrassing group of guys. … It’s embarrassing. But we are who we are. We’re not a very good team, but we’re 3-1 somehow and we’ve got all the voters fooled thinking we’re pretty good I guess because we beat Georgia.”

He continued: “We have to almost score a touchdown every time or we’re gonna get our butts beat somehow or another, it seems like.”

That Spurrier video began to circulate on the Gamecock corner of social media following Beamer’s press conference after the too-close-for-comfort victory over Jacksonville State. It was the dichotomy of how to approach a bad win.

Some fans appreciated the honesty from Spurrier, the no-BS bravado that he brought to the press conference. For good or bad, Spurrier sugarcoated nothing. It was raw. It was hard. It was how coaches of a different generation went about business.

But was it helpful?

After that narrow win over Vandy, South Carolina lost four of its next five games. Spurrier resigned six games into the next season.

Mike Davis was a running back on that 2014 Gamecocks team, finishing just shy of a 1,000-yard season. He watched the clip of Spurrier again this week. He read the comments praising the Old Ball Coach’s honestly. And he was reminded how little good it did.

“I see a lot of folks praising this video but he definitely lost respect for a lot of players and the team meeting was even (worse),” Davis posted on X (formerly Twitter).

When someone in the comments suggested that Spurrier was simply telling the truth, Davis spoke out.

“This man told the media he (wished) we had lost the game,” he said. “Not only that for weeks he talked down on the team to the media this was (built) up. The team meeting after this game is where he lost the players.”

For now, it seems, Beamer has not lost his players. And so, he will keep celebrating the victories and keep using his press conferences to tell people (his players) to celebrate the victories.