Gamecocks blank EIU in Beamer debut: 'What a special night'

The Shane Beamer Era is officially one-game-old and South Carolina's first-year coach is undefeated.

The Gamecocks easily dispatched FCS Eastern Illinois in a 46-0 victory Saturday night at Williams-Brice Stadium as South Carolina raced to an early lead and never looked back while 64,868 fans received their first look at Beamer's brand of ball.

"What a special night," Beamer said. "A lot to build upon. A lot of good, a lot of things to correct, obviously, but so happy for our players. I just told them that in the locker room. As special as tonight was for me, and as exciting for me personally, the most rewarding part, the most fun was just seeing the smiles on their faces and the joy in that locker room right now.

"We are always going to celebrate wins. The fun they had out there on the field tonight. I just love coaching these guys. I love being the head coach at South Carolina and what a way to start it tonight, without a doubt."

The Gamecocks played loose and fast in what was a relatively clean game especially considering it was Week 1 for a team playing together against an opponent for the first time, except for what Beamer called some "dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb" penalties.

"We've got to be better about that, that's going to get us beat, but we'll worry about that tomorrow," he added. "We're going to enjoy the hell out of this win tonight and let our players have a great time. We'll come in tomorrow, correct, and we know we've got a big challenge next week in Greenville and can't wait to get started on that."

Starting quarterback Zeb Noland, who grabbed national headlines when he traded in his graduate assistant whistle to suit up for one final year of eligibility, was tabbed locally as the veteran leader who could steer the Gamecocks' offense until Luke Doty returns from injury.

Noland was exactly that in his Garnet and Black debut, completing 13 of 22 passes for 121 yards and four touchdowns, and no turnovers, while smoothly getting the Gamecocks in and out of plays.

Fresh off an offseason that was universally lauded by the South Carolina staff, starting running back ZaQuandre White paced a Gamecocks offense that was able to spread the ball around to a multitude of players.

White finished the night as Carolina's leading rusher and leading receiver churning out 128 yards and a touchdown on the ground and four catches for 39 yards through the air as one of 12 players to catch a pass.

The Gamecocks controlled the pace of the game throughout putting up 443 yards of offense as a swarming Carolina defense held the Panthers to just 109 yards of offense on 44 plays.

South Carolina out-rushed EIU 258-31 yards and had 23 first downs to the Panthers nine. EIU didn't convert a single third down on nine tries with South Carolina converting 8 of 15 attempts.

The distinction of scoring the first touchdown of the Beamer era would go to tight end Nick Muse, who caught a pass from Noland just short of the goal line and then fell backwards into the end zone for a four-yard score on Gamecocks' season drive of the game.

Rather than take the traditional extra point, the Gamecocks elected to run a surprise two-point conversion, snapping the ball directly to Muse who powered into the end zone to give the Gamecocks an 8-0 lead less than five minutes into the game.

Necessary to win on this night? No. But worth it to send a message? Absolutely as the Gamecocks first debuted their version of Beamer Ball, adding two blocked punts to their resume, one by Debo Williams and the other by Jordan Strachan.

"Yes, it was planned, the first time we scored we were going to do it," Beamer said. "We talked about it in the staff meeting, we had seen when a team kicks an extra point, we had a pretty good idea how they were going to line up to that formation and felt like we had the numbers and that's why we did it. It's a way to get two points right there and it's also good to put that on tape and make teams in the future spend time on that as well."

The TD was set up by an interception by Jaylan Foster, who snagged the ball out of the air after Darius Rush tipped it on EIU's first play from scrimmage.

Beamer promised fans all offseason that his tight ends would get the football and he wasted little time in making good on it.

The second touchdown of the night came on a three-yard throw to Jaheim Bell, who finished with two catches for 11 yards and two rushes for 16 yards while lining up all over the field.

South Carolina extended the lead to 22-0 on a 12-yard TD to Josh Vann early in the second quarter as Noland found Vann, one of two wide open Carolina receivers, on the play and he made the catch in the end zone in front of a student section that brought the energy all night.

Despite the lead, Carolina pushed the issue, burning a timeout to get the ball back before the half.

South Carolina then took a 29-0 lead into halftime on a 10-yard touchdown throw to Zaquandre White, who made the catch on a flat route and then plunged into the end zone with just 34 seconds in the half.

It was more of the same in the second half as the Gamecocks substituted liberally and salted the game away with quarterbacks Jason Brown and Colten Gauthier both making their debuts.

Brown completed four of five passes for 48 yards while Gauthier completed his only throw of the night for 19 yards.

Super senior kicker Parker White tacked on a 36-yard field goal to make it 32-0 before White raced to a 63-yard score early in the fourth quarter.

Sophomore defensive end Jordan Burch put the exclamation point on the evening with a 61-yard pick-six to give the Gamecocks the 46-0 edge that would ultimately be the final.

Beamer was clearly miffed at the Gamecocks' eight penalties for 61 yards but there was nothing that could put a damper on a special night that saw Carolina win with Beamer's family, including Hall of Fame dad Frank Beamer, and friends in the stands.

Is this Beamer Ball 2.0? It's a bit early to say that. But the son of the coach who practically invented the mindset of being able to score on offense, defense and special teams liked what he saw.

"I think it's a pretty good start," Beamer said.

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