When Shane Beamer stood at the podium and began talking about Greg Adkins, some of the first words out of his mouth were Adkins “knows what he’s looking for and he’s passionate about going and get it” on the recruiting trail.

A few moments later, when Adkins addressed the media for the first time at South Carolina and began laying out what he’s looking for in a player it was easy to confirm Beamer’s assertion.

“The number one thing I ask of every coach that we recruit on the offensive line: does this guy love football? If he loves football, he has a shot. Doesn’t mean he’s going to do it, but he has a shot,” Adkins said. “If a kid is iffy about whether he’s willing to pay the price to be what it takes to play college football then you’re not recruiting the right guy to start with.”

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Adkins has college coaching experience dating back to the early 90s at stops like Georgia, Tennessee, Syracuse, Oklahoma State and Marshall.

He’s been a recruiting coordinator at multiple stops, and mentioned states like Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and South Carolina when rattling off some of the places he’s recruited over his career.

Being in coaching for going on three decades, Adkins has developed an idea of what he wants in players and, after the love of football, size and mass is the most important thing.

“Certainly you have to have some size. There are all these measurable that this person has to be this or has to be that. Yeah, you have to look at that. You can’t have 10 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-2 kids playing,” Adkins said. “But there are some kids out there that are that size that compete, but you can’t have a whole room of them. You have to have some length; you have to have some mass in the chest and on the back end.”

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After seeing their passion for the game and the kind of size they have, Adkins says he wants guys who are smart and are able to take the information, retain it, process it and be able to communicate it to their teammates.

“Defenses don’t just play base defense anymore; they don’t just line up, say here they are and do that sort of thing. You have to have kids that can think, react and play fast. We’ll try and help them with scheme to get that going, but at the end of the day you have to have guys that can play really fast and physical,” Adkins said.

“They don’t necessarily have to be great students but they have to be great communicators up front. Guys that can communicate, guys who have a little more bounce in their step, obviously the more athletically they can possibly be.”

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Adkins is coming from Marshall where he coached one of the higher-graded offensive lines in the country.

He’ll have a group to work with that’s returning four starters returning, including three who started all 10 games with Dylan Wonnum, Eric Douglas and Jovaughn Gwyn.

“I love my players and I enjoy being around people that love the game of football,” Adkins said. “If you don’t love the game of football, probably me and you aren’t going to get along very well.”