Those questions gave Beamer the opportunity to explain why, in his view, fans should not be so hung up on his low-ranking NFL offenses, and I think we all - fans, journalists, everybody - benefit from Beamer having answered those questions. The media in attendance at the press conference did a public service in being tough on Beamer, asking him to defend the hire. Waiting to hear from Beamer before weighing in decisively on whether the hire was good or bad does not necessarily require accepting or being deferential to Beamer’s rationale. The media did a good job asking tough questions Over time, it’s been laundered into the discourse as a data point that’s supposedly a damning piece of evidence. It’s being linked by prominent media publications and was referenced in the Gene Sapakoff column that got Beamer so angry. This 247Sports post from 2017 is not just being shared by fans. That listicle was then misinterpreted (or misrepresented, take your pick) by a writer at 247Sports, who incorrectly wrote that ESPN had named Loggains the worst coordinator in the league. What ESPN actually did was publish a listicle of all the offensive coordinators in the NFL, sorted by where their offense ranked at that time: Week 10 of the 2017 season. Especially when a big piece of intellectual scaffolding for the Loggains outrage stems from a factually inaccurate piece of clickbait that falsely claimed ESPN had named Loggains the worst coordinator in the NFL. Given how strident some of the condemnations of the hire have been, I think it’s fair game for Beamer to have been so critical. So I wanted to wait and hear what Shane Beamer had to say about it.Īnd it turned out that we got some substantive answers to this question! Beamer gave extensive detail on how and with whom he vetted Loggains, and he clearly articulated what qualities he saw in Loggains that made him the right coach for this program at this moment. I had a difficult time squaring Loggains’ struggles as a coordinator with the glowing praise his employers have had for him. Between now and September, the only thing we can do is cup our eyes and squint, on the off chance that maybe we will see it too. In fact, everywhere Loggains goes, he seems to leave a trail of people who see something in him. Lacking that information, I did not feel like it was possible to be as angry about the hire as I instinctually wanted to be.ĭespite Loggains’ discouraging track record as an offensive coordinator, Shane Beamer sees something in him. But in all my reading and writing, I kept tripping up on one central mystery: I did not yet know Shane Beamer’s rationale for making this hire. Part of the reason I decided to write a piece of my own about Dowell Loggains was that it seemed like the exercise might give me insight into my own feelings about the hire. Beneath the bluster, Beamer had some compelling substantive points When you see that guy get angry, it’s natural to assume he must have a pretty good reason. It helps that we arrived at this moment with some preconceived notions of Beamer as a happy-go-lucky sort of guy who will sometimes have to sit down because he is simply too overcome with joy to continue walking. In addition to complaining about the tenor of the coverage, he passionately - and persuasively - stated a positive case for his decision to hire Dowell Loggains. On Wednesday, Beamer wasn’t hollering entirely from a place of grievance. And you’re watching those Tennessee game and the Clemson games like, “That’s awesome. Your perception from the outside when you watch this thing is, “Okay, there’s an excitement there and it’s something people want to be a part of.” There are programs where there’s just something special about it and sometimes it’s hard to put into words but you just know you want to be part of it and it looks like a lot of fun. The energy that Shane Beamer has created around the program is quite different, as evidenced by Dowell Loggains’ comments about what attracted him to the South Carolina job in the first place: Will Muschamp was often quite grumpy with the media, and to some degree he succeeded in creating a bunker mentality around his program - the problem was that the combination of his aesthetically repellant style of football and his general outward demeanor made it extremely unappealing for anyone who wasn’t already in the bunker to join him.
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