South Carolina players, Shane Beamer weigh in on what success looks like Saturday
Priority number one for South Carolina Saturday night first and foremost a victory over a tough Georgia State team.
But the way a team wins, especially in season openers, says something about the rest of the season.
The Gamecocks are unveiling a new offense and wave of defensive players and spoke about what a successful night looks like outside of starting 1-0.
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“Just efficiency for sure. We talked about it with our team. It’s game one. It’s the first time you’ve been through this stuff. Just clean from a personnel, substitutions and communication. Then defensively tackling really well,” Shane Beamer said.
“Then let’s look like a well-coached football team. Georgia state is going to make plays. How do we handle adversity? It’s not all going to be great out there on Saturday night. There’s going to be adversity throughout the game. How do we deal with it?”
Saturday will be the first time South Carolina will put on tape its retooled offense and horde of skill position talent they brought in this offseason.
“Just go out there and showcase the work we put in since January with coach (Luke) Day, leading up to spring ball to workouts in the summer,” Eric Douglas said. “Showcasing everything we’ve been doing the last six months, producing it and showing it to the world on Saturday.”
All eyes will be on Spencer Rattler in his first start as South Carolina’s quarterback, who is tasked with leading what is expected to be a revitalized offense.
Rattler, though, isn’t putting any extra pressure on himself to go out there and put up set numbers in a season opener.
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“We’re not going to put a number on it or goal on it. We just want to go out there and execute every drive and every play,” he said. “That’s what it comes down to for us. We want to focus on us, score as many times as we can and protect the ball. That’s what it comes down to.”
Defensively, though, the goal is simple.
“Shutout, that’s number one. Then third downs, if we have 15 third downs we’re trying to get 14 out of 15. Make sure we’re good on third down,” Cam Smith said. “Then stopping the run. We want to hold runs under a yard or two. Then get negative plays at least every eight plays. Making sure we’re getting those things done.”
The Gamecocks struggled last season stopping the run and on third down, ranking near the bottom in both categories in 2021.
Georgia State loves to run the football, and stopping the ground game will be imperative. If the Gamecocks do and jump out to a big lead, then Jordan Strachan thinks things can get fun.
“Shoot, goose egg on the scoreboard. Stopping the run so we can get the run stopped in the first or second quarter,” he said. “We get the team down then go have fun with sacks, interceptions and all that type stuff and batted balls. That’s a great night.”
