Florida Football: Shane Beamer struggles to accept defeat against Gators

All offseason, Florida football fans had to read piece after piece about how Shane Beamer and the South Carolina Gamecocks were a team on the rise and could potentially challenge to be the runner-up in the SEC East. It never seemed to make sense after the Gamecocks were beaten down last in The Swamp, but that’s why the games get played.

So after Florida escaped Columbia with a 41-39 victory thanks to some dude named Ricky, maybe one of the reasons why South Carolina never took that next step this season is because Beamer isn’t one to look internally when things go south.

Florida Football: You talk too much

In case you are keeping score at home, a Billy Napier-led offense scored 41 points against South Carolina. This is the same offense that UNC Charlotte was able to slow down. Even Vanderbilt slowed the Gator offense down better than South Carolina, and at least they have academic standards.

So naturally, after the game, Beamer was asked why his defense couldn’t stop Florida. His response didn’t sound like someone willing to take responsibility.

If he was going to make us hear his covert narcissism disguised as altruism, he should have said:

“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me. At tea time, everybody agrees. I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror”

Yes, it can be frustrating to have what you think is the correct play call only to watch your players not execute what you envisioned. But for someone in year three of his tenure, coming off of a bye week where one would have had time to fix program deficiencies, it doesn’t seem the least bit odd that you “called a pressure,” but your player didn’t know what to do?

For as much grief as we sometimes give Billy Napier, we’ve yet to hear him go on a tangent like this. He has hinted at times about players not executing properly, but he has yet to throw his entire team under the bus outright.

Beamer’s musing is a reminder of what Florida is trying not to be. Napier hopes to build a foundation that doesn’t have the execution flaws South Carolina claims they had.

It’s still a work in progress, but we will take Napier’s approach over this any time.