There are countless ways to split up a team for a scrimmage, but South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer is hoping and planning for his first spring game to be as traditional as possible.
Beamer has already divided his roster up into two teams - the Garnet and the Black - for Saturday's Garnet and Black spring game and hopes to operate with two separate teams as opposed to just scrimmaging with offense vs. defense as the Gamecocks have done at times in the past.
"Our plan for Saturday is to divide up into two teams, evenly matched - it's not [just] offense vs. defense," Beamer said. "I literally came in here early on a Sunday morning after our first scrimmage and just kind of went through in our staff room and just basically built the teams and tried to make them as evenly as possible and that's our plan right now."
Beamer will also split up his coaching staff, with some assistants working with one team and the others with the other team. The one caveat: offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield and defensive coordinator Clayton White will call all the plays for their respective side of the ball for both teams.
Beamer's plan is contingent on the Gamecocks, who have had a number of bumps and bruises this spring, being healthy enough to allow for two fully split teams on Saturday afternoon.
"Obviously from a health standpoint, we've got to see where we are," Beamer said. "There were some positions today when we finished practice that it would be very tough if things stay the way they are right now on Tuesday for us to be able to have a game, if we don't get back some guys back in certain positions.
"We're keeping our fingers crossed that some of these bumps and bruises will heal up and our guys will be healthy enough, we'll have enough of them healthy enough, to be able to go out there and compete on Saturday which we're optimistic that we will. We'll meet today as a staff and see where our guys are on Wednesday and make a final decision but that's where we are right now."
Beamer added that running back Kevin Harris, who missed Tuesday morning's practice, is expected to be back for the spring game.
"This week will be very much like a game week," Beamer said. "This will be a grind for our guys and we've told them that. We've challenged them this week from a mental and physical toughness mentality, all that."
While much of the spring has been divided up with practice "off days" of just meetings and weight lifting sprinkled between true practice days, this week will much more resemble a true game week in the fall with several practices leading up to Saturday.
"Tomorrow is a wellness day on campus, so our guys will be off and then we're back with practice on Thursday, practice on Friday, play on Saturday, so it's a great opportunity for us to see how these guys handle that," Beamer continued. "Can you fight through the bumps and bruises? Can you fight through the practice 12 and 13 or 14 of spring practice and see how we respond? So far so good."
Asked his goals for Saturday and Beamer said the top goal is always to stay healthy.
He also wants to see his offense and defense operate efficiently as far as getting plays in and out with minimal pre-snap penalties.
He says the Gamecocks will simplify the game plan in order to not put too much of their new schemes on film and to allow the players a chance to go play without thinking too much.
"It will be very simple where we can let our guys just go play and compete and make plays on television and in front of a crowd," Beamer said. "Having said that, we want to see how our guys operate in that environment because they haven't been practicing in front of a crowd all spring and we've got some guys that are new here ... that have never played in front of a crowd that's as big as we're going to have in Williams-Brice on Saturday. Just seeing how our guys respond. ..."
South Carolina recently announced that spring game attendance has been increased to approximately 15,000 fans.
The game is scheduled for a 2 p.m. kickoff on SEC Network+.
