South Carolina coach Shane Beamer had seen sufficient from his taunting Illinois counterpart and misplaced it.
The wild scene occurred after Illinois cornerback Jaheim Clarke was injured tackling South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers within the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl at Tenting World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday.
Illinois coach Bret Bielema walked throughout the sector to test on Sellers, then held his arms out extensive till Beamer and the Gamecocks sideline noticed him.
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The taunting shortly enraged Beamer, who ran onto the sector looking for Bielema.
Beamer needed to be bodily restrained by his workers and the referees. Beamer turned again at one level and shouted at Bielema earlier than returning to a fired-up sideline.
“In all my years of coaching, I’ve never seen that happen,” Beamer advised reporters after his South Carolina squad’s 21-17 loss. “An opposing coach comes over while his player is hurt and basically say something to the opposing coach.”
The 2 coaches confirmed after the sport that the dispute was over a sign South Carolina’s kick returners gave on a third-quarter kickoff.
A participant giving that typical arms-out sign would normally let the ball go over his head and never return it.
However the Gamecocks fielded the kick and tried a lateral play that ended with a deal with on the 25.
Beamer advised reporters he cleared the usage of that sign with the Huge 12 officiating crew earlier than the sport and that it was authorized, so long as the returners didn’t wave their arms to sign a good catch.
“You have to ask him why he didn’t take it up with the officials and why he felt the need to come over here when his player was on the ground and look at me and say something to me and do that motion to me like I was full of you know what to do it,” Beamer mentioned. “That’s what I have an issue with. I’m a competitive guy, when someone does that to me I’m gonna respond because I thought that was bush league.”
Bielema mentioned that whereas returning the kick was authorized, it went towards the spirit of utilizing that sign to restrict accidents on kickoff returns.
“The ethic of what that is got evaporated there because our kids stopped running,” Bielema mentioned … “He thought I did it to him. I did it [the gesture] to the whole dam sideline … I want them to understand I know what just happened.”
It’s unsure if the thrill from the incident carried over, however Bielema obtained the higher of Beamer a couple of performs later by substituting late and forcing South Carolina to make use of a timeout. Bielema additionally obtained the final snigger as Illinois got here away with the win to complete 10-3 as South Carolina ended its season with a 9-4 mark.
