GC Live: Recapping South Carolina's loss to Arkansas

Gamecock Central LIVE’s Wes Mitchell and Chris Clark break down a South Carolina Gamecocks weekend loss to Arkansas and look forward to the rest of the 2022 season in today’s show.

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Day full of missed opportunities

(Originally published on Saturday by Collyn Taylor)

South Carolina missed on enough deep shots Saturday to where Shane Beamer wrote down on a paper mid-game to work on that this week.

For Gamecocks, who put together one of its better offensive performances of the Shane Beamer era, Saturday’s game will go down as one of missed opportunities early.

“Very (frustrating). We felt like we had a great advantage with our receivers and tight ends versus their defensive backs today. That’s why we threw it like we did. We certainly had some guys running open in the secondary,” Beamer said.

“We had a lot of opportunities out there in all three phases. But proud of the way our guys continued to fight and battle.”

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The Gamecocks (1-1) missed at least three deep shots to an open Ahmarean Brown over the course of the game, two in the first half.

If Spencer Rattler connects with Brown on either of the two in the first half, the game could have potentially changed with South Carolina able to go score-for-score against Arkansas in the early goings.

“I don’t want to speak for AB but a couple of those deep balls, I don’t know if he lost it in the sun or whatever at the last second. That first ball, we have to be able to go up there and attack that ball in the air,” Beamer said.

“If they break it up they break it up but hopefully we draw a pass interference penalty. We have to continue to work on it and be better there for sure. We have some receivers and have some tight ends that can make plays and we have to continue to find ways to get them the ball and capitalize on it.”

Instead, South Carolina found itself in a 21-3 hole with eight minutes to play until halftime.

After a MarShawn Lloyd touchdown drive, the Gamecocks had a chance to go down the field before half and score but the offense stalled.

The Gamecocks went 27 yards in five plays with 18 of those coming on the first play. Two incompletions ended the drive and the half.

South Carolina had plenty of opportunities to get back in the game in the second half before Arkansas went up double digits and couldn’t.

After a touchdown followed by a fourth down stop, the Gamecocks got the ball in the third quarter  with a chance to take the lead.

Instead the offense went backwards, thanks to a sack on third down, and Arkansas took advantage.

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The Razorbacks scored on their next two drives while the Gamecocks turned it over. A five-point game ballooned to 19 and South Carolina was kept at arm’s length after that.

Taking away sacks, South Carolina ran the ball on just 23 of its 67 plays. Of those, only 13 were to true running backs. The first carry by a true back came on the Gamecocks’ 14th play of the day.

“I think it was sticking with the game plan. I don’t know how many plays we had to that point. But I don’t think we made them punt to that point either,” Beamer said. “I don’t think we played a ton of plays. Certainly we want to pop runs in there and our offensive line wants to run the ball and we need to run the ball. We’re not going to win football games consistently dropping back and throwing it.”

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Part of that is the game plan. South Carolina wanted to exploit Arkansas being down two starters in the secondary. But the Gamecocks had success when it ran early and shied away from it at times.

Taking away sack yardage, the Gamecocks averaged four yards per carry. Juju McDowell averaged 5.8 yards per carry but touched it six times in the run game.

“We were doing a lot today of seeing what they were in defensively and calling plays off of that. Those were running plays and pass plays,” Beamer said. “A lot of the formations we were in based on the way they lined up could have been a run or could have been a pass what we called. The looks they were giving us were looks we felt better about calling passes to.”

South Carolina ultimately put up 400 yards of total offense with Spencer Rattler the first Gamecocks quarterback to throw for at least 350 yards since 2018 (Jake Bentley).

But South Carolina couldn’t take advantage of a few big opportunities and it comes back to bite them.

“I mean we put up 30 points. We threw for almost 400 yards but we have to run the ball better. We rushed for 50 yards and that’s just not us. We’re not going to win games if we can’t run the ball. That goes for all of us,” Rattler said. “Overall as an offense we were tough. It was a dogfight and we went out there and laid it all on the line. The cards didn’t roll our way. We’ll get better as a group, as a whole team.”

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