Shane Beamer commends Spencer Rattler for giving South Carolina a chance

There weren’t a lot of positive takeaways for South Carolina offensively during Week 1’s 31-17 loss to North Carolina. Despite the scoring woes, Spencer Rattler was the one constant that kept the Gamecocks going.

Shane Beamer praised Rattler for his effort but called on the rest of the offense to step up the same way.

“He gave us a chance. Played his butt off. Can’t allow our quarterback to get hit like that. We have to protect him better, obviously,” Beamer said postgame. “He is a hell of a player. Gave us a chance to win the football game. Made some great throws. Penalties, offensively that backed us up at the end of the game made it tough on him.

“Obviously, throughout the game, we had a tough time running the ball and their pass rushers were able to get going and he is under pressure. Like I said, we have to be able to protect better than what we did.”

Rattler finished the game completing 30-for-39 passes for 353 yards, but despite his workload did not throw a touchdown pass. He didn’t turn the ball over, either, but the amount of sacks he took made him finish the game with negative-22 yards rushing despite having a 15-yard run on the night. Xavier Legette emerged as Rattler’s top receiver with nine catches for 178 yards as well.

Beamer had no excuses for the performance of his offensive line, who gave up nine sacks during the outing. That is something he’s set on correcting this week at practice.

“Not good enough. Have to play better. Have to coach better. … It is ridiculous to give up a sack rushing three people. That starts with me. We obviously didn’t do a good job of preparing our guys up front. We were inexperienced up there but that is no excuse,” Beamer said. “Some of those guys that are playing for the first time tonight, Cason Henry, Jaxon Hughes, Nick [Gargiulo], Vershon [Lee], Jakai [Moore], Trai [Jones], all of those guys have to get better and they will.

“Our young guys like Tree [Babalade], Trovon [Baugh], [Jatavius] Shivers, Markee [Anderson], all of those guys have to continue getting better for us.”

As Beamer looks to correct South Carolina’s wrongs, Week 2 will feature the Gamecocks’ 2023 home opener against Furman. On paper, it seems to be a perfect opportunity to get their record back to even ahead of the following week’s daunting road trip to No. 1 Georgia.