Tennessee HC Josh Heupel made South Carolina HC Shane Beamer look foolish without even trying

There's a 100 percent chance that Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel wasn't thinking about South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer on Saturday after UT's win against Texas A&M.  But Heupel still managed to make Beamer look foolish.  And Heupel did it just by being himself.  On Saturday, after South Carolina's 41-39 loss to […]

Zach Ragan Tennessee Volunteers News Writer
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There's a 100 percent chance that Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel wasn't thinking about South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer on Saturday after UT's win against Texas A&M. 

But Heupel still managed to make Beamer look foolish. 

And Heupel did it just by being himself. 

On Saturday, after South Carolina's 41-39 loss to Florida, Beamer had a mini meltdown in the post-game press conference when asked what went wrong against the Gators. 

Beamer essentially threw his players under the bus — and he called out specific situations. 

Here's the video of Beamer (which isn't sped up…even though it seems like it). 

It sounds like Beamer feels like South Carolina coached perfect and the players just didn't play well (yeah, he gave the "we gotta coach them better" speech at the end, but only after he blamed everyone on the defensive side the ball). 

I'm not saying Beamer's wrong, by the way. I'm sure he's right. But getting emotional like that after a loss probably isn't going to inspire confidence among his players (just because it works for Nick Saban doesn't mean it will work for everyone else). 

Josh Heupel, on the other hand, had some coaching calls that he'd probably like back from Saturday's win against the Aggies. Some of the calls were ill-advised. And some didn't work because of execution. 

Heupel, however, stayed calm, didn't throw the players under the bus, and for the most part, took the blame for what went wrong. 

"Felt like I was wrong on all the critical decisions during the course of the ball game for whatever reason tonight," said Heupel during "The Josh Heupel Show". 

I didn't agree with some of Heupel's decisions — like kicking the 51 yard field goal in the first half (even though the wind was in UT's favor on that kick). It just felt like too big of a risk. 

But if Charles Campbell makes that kick or if the Vols convert the two fourth downs they went for, then Heupel looks like a genius. Ultimately, the players didn't execute what was called. But Heupel didn't blame them. He put it all on himself (and he certainly didn't claim to have the perfect call, like Beamer did). 

There's a way to coach mature and there's a way to coach immature. It's pretty clear which categories Heupel and Beamer fall in.