Shane Beamer visited with the Kansas City Chiefs on Tuesday and Wednesday. Here’s why

Shane Beamer was in the Charleston area on Wednesday evening for the the fourth of six stops on his Welcome Home speaking tour. His flight to the Lowcountry took a little longer than one would expect because, well, he was coming from 1,000 miles away.

Beamer spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Kansas City with the coaching staff of the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs as part of his offseason professional development.

Though pretty common practice for college coaches to travel around during the offseason in hopes of picking the brain of fellow coaches, Beamer was in Kansas City not learn more about Andy Reid or Patrick Mahomes, but how to best prepare his team to be better for the start of the season.

He noted that he plans on visiting the Carolina Panthers, with new head coach Dave Canales, later in the summer and might trek to another NFL building this summer. But learning from Reid and the Chiefs raises eyebrows.

“There’s certainly some things that I’ve looked from last year until now that we can do even better in order to get those (freshmen) ready to play even quicker,” Beamer said on Wednesday. “Just talking about how, in the summertime, we can structure things even better so we can get those ready to play even quicker.”

Beamer noted that last season, South Carolina started five true freshman — DB Jalon Kilgore, DB Judge Collier, WR Nyck Harbor, OL Tree Babalade, OL Trovon Baugh — and that was despite the latter three not arriving on campus until the summer.

“We’ve shown we can get guys ready,” Beamer acknolwedged.

In saying that, though, the Gamecocks head coach has looked at myriad areas that can be improved, how the summer can better be structured so that guys like freshman offensive linemen Josiah Thompson or Kam Pringle are ready to contribute in Week 1.

That’s at the crux of professional development, finding new ways to structure June and July workouts or preseason practices to make sure the Gamecocks are ready to roll on Aug. 31 for the opener against Old Dominion.

And why might Beamer want to make sure the Gamecocks are better out of the gate? Well in Beamer’s three seasons at South Carolina, USC is 7-7 overall and 1-6 against SEC foes in the month of September.

Beamer is also trying to gain knowledge on is how to keep his offensive linemen healthy. Last season, injuries plagued the Gamecocks’ O-line. At one point in the season, 10 USC offensive linemen were injured, creating a dynamic that made it difficult for South Carolina to even practice.

Which brings us back to the Chiefs, where their coaching staff is prepping players for a full season (including playoffs) that can last over 20 games.

“NFL teams are good teams to pick the brains of because they play such a long season,” Beamer said. “Those are all things that I may be talking to them about today or conversations where I’ll pick up a phone and call another college head coach and ask them kind of the same questions.”

Beamer continued: “I like what we do in August but are there some ways we can tweak it to be even better and maybe a little bit healthier and fresher starting (out)?”