Shane Beamer discusses run game struggles, reserve running backs
South Carolina was down two of its best running backs Saturday in a dreadful 38-6 loss to Florida and, without either, it was tough to get the run game going.
But, as South Carolina still tries to figure out the status of both MarShawn Lloyd and Christian Beal-Smith, it will be similar personnel out there trying to get the run game going.
Shane Beamer, when asked about getting potential reserve running backs more carries, said the Gamecocks feel Jaheim Bell and Juju McDowell are the best options while the room gets healthy.
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“They’re continuing to compete and continue to get better. It all goes back to practice and how guys perform in practice. Those are guys who we have confidence in and continue to get better. Loavsea (Carroll) is playing on special teams right now,” Beamer said.
“Rashad (Amos) was on our kickoff team last night and Dante (Miller’s) done some good things for us as well from a special teams standpoint. Those guys are quality running backs who continue to get better. But right now we feel like Juju and Jaheim give us the best chance to win football games.”
South Carolina ran the ball 20 times last night, taking out sacks, with Bell earning 12 of those. Dakeron Joyner–a quarterback turned receiver–had two, receiver Xavier Legette had one and Spencer Rattler toted it three times.
McDowell had two carries for 11 yards. Bell, after a productive day last week, had 30 rushing yards with a long of 18 and averaged 2.5 yards per carry. But, despite some tough drives where the ground game wasn’t working, Beamer likes Bell in the backfield.
“Jaheim Bell is a hell of a running back. Is that his natural position necessarily? No. but you watch Jaheim Bell run the ball and he did some good things. Certainly some runs he’d like to have back but he’s a weapon back there,” he said.
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“We’ll try and continue to involve him but know we need to get him the ball in space similar to what we’ve done in the past. Jaheim is a guy we want to use in multiple ways. Juju did some good things last night as well. Hopefully, we get some of these guys–CBS and MarShawn–back healthy.”
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It all culminated in South Carolina averaging under two yards per carry when sacks were included. Forty percent of the Gamecocks’ runs go for no gain or less. Over half gained two yards or fewer.
“In regard to last night, I don’t want to give you the same stuff I always have, but perimeter blocking on some of our perimeter runs weren’t good enough and we didn’t control the line of scrimmage. When you watch when we run the football, you’d love to see some knockback and push up front,” Beamer said.
“We didn’t have that as consistently enough as we had in other games. We tried to get on the perimeter some. And when we did we got tackled one-on-one in space or missed a perimeter block. It wasn’t good enough. We have to coach it better and execute better also.”
The Gamecocks (6-4, 3-4 SEC) have one of its biggest tests of the season Saturday, hosting playoff contender Tennessee at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
“In game 10 you can’t sit there and say, ‘It’s one game.’ There’s a body of work over 10 games in all three phases to evaluate for sure,” Beamer said. “Last night, there are good things we can build on from that game and bad things we need to learn from to make sure they don’t happen again.”
