COLUMBIA, S.C. — We’re just hours away from the Gamecocks taking the field for their first practice to prepare for the season.
Thursday evening, head coach Shane Beamer and his players met with reporters.
“I know this our guys are extremely excited to get going," Coach Shane Beamer said.
Adding, “We had an elite summer."
Beamer says there has been significant progress since last season, especially over the summer when they built up the team’s mental toughness. But there’s still more work to be done.
“I really do believe there are multiple, we met as a staff this morning, and I talked about all the things that really excite me about this team which are a lot, but then all of the things that are more I don't wanna say concerns but questions we have to answer."
"When you see our players when they walk in here in a bit, you're gonna see them, and a lot of them look different and what not, and I know some of those pictures on social media have been quite a hit, of the before and afters, but we've had that with every single one of our players and we took 4.5 hours yesterday as a coaching staff and went through every single player on our team and talked about their summers and what not."
Quarterback LaNorris Sellers is optimistic they will prove the naysayers wrong.
"It will be an exciting season, an exciting season,” Sellers said.
While Texas and Oklahoma have joined the SEC this year, he says the Gamecocks are ready for the challenge.
"It’s still football, they added two teams, it’s not really that big of a difference I'd say, it's still SEC it’s still the hardest conference," Sellers adds.
The first game is August 31st against Old Dominion here at Williams-Brice Stadium at 4:15 PM.