How Shane Beamer sounded just like Butch Jones this week
If you've watched any of South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer's press conferences over the last 18 months, it's probably not a surprise to you that he sounded a lot like former Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones this week. And that's not a good thing if you're a South Carolina fan. Beamer somehow […]
If you've watched any of South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer's press conferences over the last 18 months, it's probably not a surprise to you that he sounded a lot like former Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones this week.
And that's not a good thing if you're a South Carolina fan.
Beamer somehow found himself in the middle of the Kentucky/Mark Stoops/John Calipari drama that's been brewing recently (Football Scoop's John Brice recaps all of that here, but be warned, you'll want to watch The Fast and the Furious after reading his story).
Stoops commented during SEC Media Days in July about how easy it is to "change the climate of a program". He then pointed to a coach wearing sunglasses and dancing around as an example.
It felt like Stoops' comment was directed at a video earlier this summer of Beamer dancing and wearing sunglasses.
(I've made fun of that video plenty of times, but I think the hate is overdone. He's just having fun with his players.)
Beamer responded to Stoops' comment this week by insinuating that several of Kentucky's coaches came up to him last season to express how impressed they were with the culture at South Carolina.
"In fact, two or three of his assistant coaches came up to me during pre-game warmups last year to comment on the culture of our program and how impressed they were with it just from watching videos on social media and things like that," said Beamer this week.
(Stoops, by the way, said this past weekend that he wasn't talking about Beamer, but I'm not sure I buy that.)
I'm a skeptic by nature. So anytime someone starts a story by bragging about someone who complimented them, I immediately feel like it's suspect.
Beamer's comment about the unnamed coaches at Kentucky sounded just like Butch's comment to CBS Sports last summer about folks at Tennessee calling him to tell him how much they respect him.
“Everybody told me, ‘Butch it’s hard for you right now, but the longer this plays out, the better it’s going to be. You’ll be back,'” said Jones. “I had a guy in [the Tennessee] administration call me the other day, ‘Butch, everybody here now respects the hell out of you.'”
That quote reeks of insecurity (what Butch was known for at UT) and does Beamer's.
Jones' thin skin proved to be a bad fit in the SEC. He was fine when the Vols were winning (you couldn't wipe the smile off his face after the 5-0 start in 2016). But when things got tough — like later in 2016 when Tennessee inexplicably lost to South Carolina and Vanderbilt despite having the best roster we've seen in Knoxville since Phillip Fulmer was in town — we quickly saw the real Butch Jones. And it wasn't good. There were lots of excuses, plenty of finger pointing, and a general lack of accountability.
I'm not saying that's going to be the same thing that happens to Beamer at South Carolina — I have no way to know if that'll be the case. But the similarities between him and Butch are there. And that doesn't bode well for Beamer's future in the SEC.
Featured image via Twitter.com
