Shane Beamer is emerging as a solid head coach after spending years learning from experienced head coaches across the country.

And who has the Gamecocks’ head coach learned the most from? His SEC foe head coach Kirby Smart, who Beamer worked for at Georgia in 2016 and 2017.

Beamer detailed what he learned from Smart during the SEC coaches teleconference Wednesday.

“I’ve been fortunate to be around some great head coaches in my career, starting with Coach O’Leary there in Atlanta when I first got into coaching,” Beamer said. “But honestly, those 2 years that I spent in Athens with Kirby had as much of an impact on my career and my philosophy than anywhere that I’ve been. Kirby made me a better coach. I’ve been a lot of places before I got to Athens, but Kirby made me a better coach. He’s demanding, but he sees everything, he holds you accountable, he knows all 3 phases. It was great for me from a recruiting standpoint to be a part of that program and I’ve taken from everywhere that I’ve been.”

While he has taken what he’s learned from Smart and applied it at South Carolina, he’s making sure to do some things differently with his new team. But learning from a coach as good as Smart, there are bound to be a lot of similarities in how Beamer does things.

“But certainly we’re not identical to the Georgia program here, there’s a lot of differences,” Beamer said. “But there’s a lot of things that would be very similar if you spent time around both programs and fortunate for the 2 years I got with him and it was also helpful too the fact that I was with Kirby from Day 1 when he got to Athens as a first-time head coach. And that really helped me when I took this job as a first-time head coach, using some of those things that I learned, seeing Kirby go through it his first year in Athens.”

Beamer will get a chance to take down Smart on Saturday, but it will be a big challenge. The Bulldogs had 2 dominant wins to start the season and don’t seem to be slowing down.

South Carolina managed to pull off 2 huge upsets last year against Tennessee and Clemson, and it’s safe to say a win over Georgia would be massive for the program.

The Gamecocks and Bulldogs kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.