Under Will Muschamp’s leadership, South Carolina annually participated in one of the earlier start dates to spring practice around the Southeastern Conference but that will be changing, at least for this year, according to Shane Beamer.

During his Tuesday media availability, Beamer was asked to share any information he had regarding his first spring practice as the leader of the South Carolina program — and if the current plan in place was to even have spring practice.

“Spring practice, I’m planning to proceed full speed ahead with spring practice like normal, until someone tells me otherwise,” Beamer said during his press conference. “All my conversations are we are full speed ahead.

“We are tentatively scheduled to start spring practice on March 20th — is our tentative start date. I’m hopeful we’ll be able to have a spring game and get everybody over to Williams-Brice for that. If so, that would be scheduled for April 24th — tentatively right now. Right now, I do know we are planning on March 20th. Typical starting time.”

While there’s really no wrong way to approach spring practice, as there are pluses and minuses to starting earlier as opposed to starting later, the decision to push back the start date appears to be the right one for the Gamecocks.

With an entirely new coaching staff, a new strength staff, and tons of turnover on the roster in Columbia, getting everyone on the same page before spring practice just makes sense to Beamer.

“I thought it was important for us to maximize the time in the weight room with Coach Day, before spring practice,” Beamer added. “The time that offensive, defensive and special teams staff have to implement their systems and figure their plan of attack is going forward.

“That gives us roughly nine weeks starting this week, to get stuff done in the weight room and get organized from that standout before we hit the practice field in March.”