News19's gameday weather forecast
News19‘s Daniel Bonds and Gamecock Central bring you the official gameday weather forecast for Saturday night’s South Carolina-Texas A&M football game in Columbia, South Carolina.
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Shane Beamer stresses importance of snapping losing skid in South Carolina-Texas A&M series
On3 Staff Report
Second-year coach Shane Beamer has his Gamecocks riding a three-game winning streak but he’ll be tasked with something Saturday that neither of his predecessors, Will Muschamp and Steve Spurrier, were able to do: win a game in the annual South Carolina–Texas A&M series.
The two programs began meeting as annual cross-divisional opponents in 2014 after the SEC finalized its scheduling post-expansion in 2012. The Aggies have won all eight meetings.
“We need to win one of these in this game,” Beamer said with a laugh on the Always College Football program with ESPN analyst Greg McElroy. “Apparently this is a trophy game but nobody around here can show me or tell me what the trophy looks like.”
Trophy or not, snapping an eight-game losing streak in the South Carolina-Texas A&M series would be a nice feather in the cap for Beamer.
Texas A&M has dominated, winning by an average margin of victory of 18.9 points per contest. South Carolina has only scored 23 points total in the last three meetings.
That said, the Aggies enter on a two-game losing skid and are just 3-3 overall this year, with heat starting to build under coach Jimbo Fisher‘s seat.
“We’re going to have to play really, really well,” Beamer said. “Coach Fisher has a great team. They’re playing so many freshmen. You watch them, they continue to get better each week. They’ve dealt with some injuries at certain positions as well and haven’t had a full roster, but you watch them, they’re extremely talented. They look like you want a football team to look like at every position. They continue to get better.”
South Carolina – Texas A&M a chance to build momentum
The annual series this year could be a good chance to build momentum for both programs. Or continue it, really.
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The Gamecocks are riding that three-game winning streak mentioned earlier. Win this one and suddenly a run to 7-2 looks possible with games against Missouri and Vanderbilt following.
The Aggies, on the flip side, desperately need to halt their negative momentum. The early-season schedule has been brutal, but with a date with No. 7 Ole Miss looming a week after this one, the skid could easily extend to four games if Texas A&M can’t come up with a win in Columbia.
“They obviously had Alabama on the ropes,” Beamer said, showing some respect for the Aggies.. “That game was going on at the same time we played Kentucky so didn’t get to watch it, but obviously watching the tape getting ready for them.”
It’s hard to know what to expect this week, but Beamer is hoping to erase the near-decade of futility in the series this weekend.
“We went out to College Station last year and did not play well at all,” he said. “We’re going to have to play and coach a whole lot better than we did last year, but our guys are excited being back at home at night in Williams-Brice Stadium. It’ll be an amazing environment on Saturday night.
“We’ve got to continue to do the things that we’ve been doing the past few weeks, running the ball, stopping the run, creating turnovers defensively. Got to have a great week of prep in order to go do that.”
