DJ Swearinger calls out South Carolina for picking Jacksonville State game to honor Steve Spurrier teams

South Carolina welcomed their Steve Spurrier led teams back campus for Saturday’s clash with Jacksonville State, but not everyone was happy about it.

One of the players in attendance at Williams-Brice Stadium is former Gamecocks defensive back DJ Swearinger. While it’s a nice thing South Carolina is attempting to do, honoring their past successes, Swearinger believes he and his teammates deserved a bigger stage.

Evidently, Jacksonville State wasn’t the opponent Swearinger had in mind when he pictured South Carolina honoring some of the best teams in their illustrious history. He made his feelings known on X (formerly known as Twitter) before kickoff.

Talking bout y’all honoring the BEST team in school history @ halftime against a none sec school nor a power 5 school?! No disrespect but Respectfully y’all got us F’ed Up! Out of all the game you chose that?! Do better S. Carolina like wtf. We Legendary, so treats us as such! 🤦🏾‍♂️

— DJ Swearinger (@JungleBoi_Swagg) November 4, 2023

“Talking bout y’all honoring the BEST team in school history @ halftime against a [non] sec school nor a power 5 school?! No disrespect but Respectfully y’all got us F’ed Up! Out of all the game you chose that?! Do better S. Carolina like wtf,” Swearinger tweeted. “We Legendary, so treats us as such!”

Alas, perhaps Swearinger should be careful what he wishes for, as it hasn’t exactly been the most successful season for the Gamecocks within the SEC. Nevertheless, perhaps a matchup against Vanderbilt, Kentucky or even Clemson would’ve been better to hold the ceremony.

Regardless, South Carolina has bigger fish to fry than worrying about off-field things like that at the moment, as the Gamecocks are currently embroiled in a battle with Jacksonville State. Swearinger may not have thought they were a formidable opponent, but they’re proving to be all that and more.

Shane Beamer not focusing on bowl eligibility in South Carolina locker room

At 2-6 going into the final month of the season, head coach Shane Beamer and the South Carolina Gamecocks are fighting to become bowl-eligible. To get there, though, South Carolina can’t afford to lose another game. 

Despite being in that situation, Beamer explained that the Gamecocks aren’t focusing on bowl eligibility within the team’s locker room.

“We talked about it a little bit this morning,” Shane Beamer said. “To me, our mindset, like I understand when you go outside this building all they’re talking about is you got to get bowl-eligible, you’ve got to win four more. They know that.” 

With a non-conference game against Jacksonville State on Saturday, that’s where the Gamecocks are focused, rather than a potential bowl game down the road.

“We talked about it this morning that look, we are not going to talk about it in this building every single week. We understand what we have to do. We need to win four games to get bowl eligible. But the first thing, you have to figure out a way to beat Jacksonville State this week,” Beamer said. 

“So, let’s not think about the anxiety of what we have to do. You can’t get the fourth win in a row until you get one of them. I know it’s cliche but it’s process. It is focusing on this week and what we have to do to be the very best we can be and be better than we were last week in order to play well against Jacksonville State and hopefully win the game. After that, we will worry about the next one and truly take it one week at a time because if you are thinking about things four weeks down the road, you are not thinking about this week and that is when you are going to get woke up pretty quickly, if you are not.”

Shane Beamer is in his third season at South Carolina. In each of his first two seasons, Beamer managed to go to a bowl game, with a 1-1 record in those bowl games.