Shane Beamer was all smiles following South Carolina’s 40-17 victory over Florida on Saturday night, a signature win for the program in his first season.

After the game, he was interviewed by Alyssa Lang of the SEC Network. He said the win means everything.

“For the last 2 weeks all we’ve talked about is just competition and competing,” Beamer said. “… You worry when you come off a game like Texas A&M going into an off week how the mentality is going to be. We had an unbelievable week of practice the last 2 weeks and they competed. Best 2 weeks of practice that we’ve had all season.”

Beamer said he tried to shorten the practices last week when South Carolina didn’t have a game, and the players wanted more time.

“They deserve, so happy for them, and hopefully this is just the start of something special,” he said.

Beamer told the team on Friday night what third-string QB Jason Brown did in his first start at St. Francis as he got set to make his first start at South Carolina against Florida. Brown threw for 300 yards in that game, and this time, was 14-for-24 passing for 175 yards and 2 touchdowns.

“We told them Jason was going to play well, now did I know he was going to play that well, no,” Beamer said, “what he did is he did a great job of — we did a great job of running the ball and helping him out. Defense got turnovers, just an unbelievable night to be a Gamecock.”