First and foremost, South Carolina’s spring game on Saturday was an important final opportunity for players like quarterbacks Spencer Rattler and Luke Doty and a number of newcomers to get valuable reps and for the Gamecocks staff to get more film as they continue personnel and scheme evaluations.

But Saturday’s game at Williams-Brice Stadium was the backdrop for what felt like a party in Columbia. A party that had 20,671 guests that had Shane Beamer exceedingly adamant afterward that there were more than that listed number of stadium attendants.

No matter the number, in a way it really was a celebration.

Following a surprising first season under Beamer that was more successful than most anticipated, the optimism of a first-year head coach transformed into something real that more talent flocked toward.

That was boosted in a tremendous way upon the transfers of Rattler, tight end Austin Stogner and five more potentially big-time contributors. It feels as if there is an excitement and enthusiasm surrounding this South Carolina program that hasn’t been felt in years, and the atmosphere in Columbia on Saturday afternoon and at night under the lights when the game kicked off validated that.

“What an awesome night for South Carolina football. What a great weekend,” Beamer said following the game. “What an environment out here tonight. We just talked about it in the locker room. I mean, that was a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

“It was awesome. That pre-game walk that we had … there’s college football programs across the country that would die to have a walk like that for a regular-season game. And we had a turnout like that for a spring scrimmage in April. It’s unbelievable, and we’ve got the greatest fans in the nation, and they showed that tonight.”

After 14 practices, the 15th and final practice of the spring came in the form of Saturday’s game. It capped off what has been viewed as an overwhelmingly positive, momentous next step in year two under Beamer. Now, it’s all about sustaining that momentum and giving those “greatest fans in the nation” more reason to believe as South Carolina heads into a crucial offseason with more work to be done.

First up is Beamer’s plan to meet “with every single player” on the roster to give them a rundown of how their spring ball performances and progression (or regression) affected their roles and where they stand on their individual positional depth chart heading into summer and the fall. That began in earnest on Monday morning, and it appears we have already seen the results of some of those meetings.

Four players entered the transfer portal on Monday, whittling South Carolina’s scholarship count down to 91 players as of Tuesday morning. We will be seeing more transfers hit the portal in the coming days as the Gamecocks work their way down to the 85 scholarship cap.

The scholarship players who remain at South Carolina will get a break from football and team workouts in May before returning after Memorial Day for voluntary workouts in June.

Beamer and Co. will be hoping that the break offers an opportunity for all the players to get some rest but especially those who are in the midst of recovering from injury and those who are continuing to get work their way back. Players such as:

– Doty, who the staff brought along slowly this offseason and appeared back at full health on Saturday but is still needing to get his feet under him.

– Running back Marshawn Lloyd, who Beamer said postgame never looked 100 percent healthy, but looked every bit the part of an emerging breakout candidate on Saturday, in our evaluation.

– A tight ends room that was banged up in the spring and is looking forward to the addition of Stogner once he completes his final coursework at Oklahoma.

– Linebacker Sherrod Greene, who was on a pitch count for the spring game but could prove to be an indispensable, versatile commodity as an explosive, do-it-all chess piece for Clayton White.

Before that period of rest, though, Beamer will be meeting with the team on Wednesday following the individual meetings on Monday that will continue Tuesday. That team meeting will be one for Beamer and the rest of the staff to touch base with them and get them organized going into May. He says that his message will be a reiteration of what he told them Saturday in the locker room at the conclusion of the spring season – that he loves the work ethic they displayed over the past four months.

“We have not had a practice all spring where you walk off the field and say, ‘Man, we wasted today’ or ‘we didn’t get better.’ I mean, they work,” Beamer said. “They get mad at me when I don’t let them go full speed and tackle live to the ground every single practice. If anything, we’ve gotta tell them to slow down and pull back a little bit.”

There are more questions this summer heading into fall camp. We will get more into those as the doldrums of the offseason have officially arrived.

We are now in the beginning stages of a relatively quiet time for South Carolina football, but Saturday night’s showcase showed there are some amped-up signs of life in the program and it doesn’t look like it will be quiet for long. If the team can parlay the momentum into a strong offseason.

“I told them in the locker room I love coaching ‘em. I love the way they work,” Beamer said. “I told ‘em that we’ve gotten off to a great start in 2022 with the work we’ve put in in the weight room in January, February and March and then what we’ve done in spring practice.

“But we got a lot of work that we have to do as well, and we need to have a great, great summer as we got into the season. But we certainly have gotten better since January, and now we got to take another big step as we go into the summer and then pre-season camp.”