South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer glad to destroy Wildcats and "lazy narratives" on Saturday

He was emotional (as he often is), but South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer had every right to be after his team's 31-6 dismantling of the rival Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday.

The Gamecocks entered the contest in Lexington, Kentucky ranging anywhere from 8 to 10.5-point underdogs, and that spread materialized after a not-so-stellar showing from Beamer's squad during week 1 against Old Dominion. USC won the game 23-19, but it was sloppy, especially on offense.

Seemingly since halftime of the ODU game, the Gamecocks were a national punching bag. Many media members were talking about the team winning just 3 or 4 games during the entire 2024 season and starting the losing off with a blowout loss to Kentucky. On SEC Nation (which was in Lexington on Saturday), when Roman Harper picked the Gamecocks, long-time SEC prognosticator Paul Finebaum called it the "dumbest pick" of the day.

When the dust settled in an almost empty Commonwealth Stadium, the throng of South Carolina football fans who made the trip up to the Bluegrass State cheered loudly as their favorite team celebrated their lopsided victory and their head coach spoke to ESPN sideline reporter Molly McGrath during his postgame interview.

After shouting out his defense's strong play and lauding the toughness of his quarterback LaNorris Sellers who played through a leg injury for most of the game, Beamer took some shots at those who doubted his team this week:

"There was a perception out there about our team this week, but it wasn’t reality. And we knew what kind of team we have. There were some lazy narratives out there this week about this team."

Beamer went on to repeat the phrase "lazy narratives," nearly spitting the words out when he said them. While most of the country saw one poor performance and loudly wrote off the Gamecocks, Beamer used it as motivation, and his team responded.

Over the years, the relationship between Beamer and Ketncuky headman Mark Stoops has been, one could say, strained. The two men have traded media barbs in the past, and though Beamer said some nice things about the Wildcats and their coach to McGrath, he also made sure to add an important note: "We expected this," he said in reference to the blowout win.

South Carolina football is 2-0 and has won its SEC opener for the first time since 2017. The Gamecocks got the type of bounce-back performance they had to have heading into what will be a big game next weekend. The ranked LSU Tigers will travel to Williams-Brice Stadium for a Noon ET kickoff that will be broadcast on ABC and streamed on ESPN+ and the ESPN app.

Confidence is high right now for those wearing garnet and black, and if USC can pull off the win over the Bayou Bengals next week, talk moves from "Will the Gamecocks make a bowl game?" to "Can the Gamecocks defy the odds and have a special season?"