'We'll be just fine': South Carolina feeling confident despite 1-2 start
It didn’t surprise South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer at all. He knew his team could hang in there and have a shot to win against college football’s best.
South Carolina came into last Saturday’s contest against Georgia as 27-point underdogs. Most, if not all of the country, picked the Dawgs to win the game.
But for a time, the Gamecocks were in a position to pull off an upset. They led for nearly 33 minutes of the game, playing a clean first half.
“I know the story’s like, ‘Oh, my God, how is South Carolina in this thing?’ We expected this. And anyone that’s surprised by that hasn’t watched us play the last couple years,” Beamer said.
Eventually, Georgia came to life and scored three touchdowns after halftime to pull away late. There were a lot of reasons why things didn’t go as smoothly in the second half. But it mainly came down to the self-inflicted wounds.
“We just shot ourselves in the foot. I mean, we had 11 penalties, I believe. Just shot ourselves in the foot with false starts, wrong formations, just little stuff like that,” Spencer Rattler said.
“We know what we need to clean up. But I’m proud as hell, proud of my guys a lot. We battled against the best team in the country, and we should’ve won the game.”
[Win tickets to the South Carolina-Mississippi State football game]
South Carolina came in expecting to win and didn’t do so. Beamer said there are no moral victories for just keeping it close with Georgia.
However, he does believe his group has only gotten better as the season has progressed.
“There’s no question that we are a better football team than what we were two weeks ago in Charlotte, and we will continue to improve as the year goes on,” Beamer said.
Top 10
- 1New
Hubert Davis
Coach, UNC agree to extension
- 2
Bruce Pearl
Weighs in on Big Ten vs. SEC football
- 3
Paul Finebaum
No SEC Championship Game?
- 4
Quinn Ewers concerns
Joel Klatt on Texas QB stock
- 5Hot
Kirby Smart
Jab at Johnny Manziel
Get the On3 Top 10 to your inbox every morning
By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.
In a way, Beamer is right. Despite being 1-2, the Gamecocks have improved a lot since the first game of the year. The offense has looked strong behind Rattler. The offensive line, which allowed nine sacks in the opener, has only given up three since.
Defensively, South Carolina is finding who its impact guys are. Debo Williams and Nick Emmanwori, who both played every snap against the Dawgs, finished with double-digit tackles. TJ Sanders received Co-SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week honors after he registered nine tackles and a sack on Saturday.
[Get news from GamecockCentral via email]
For what it’s worth, the Gamecocks were in this same spot last year. Georgia had just beaten them by 41 points at home, putting them at 1-2 with a lot of questions left to be answered. That team ended up finishing 7-3 in their last 10 games with two wins over top-10 teams.
According to the FPI, South Carolina has a 58.5 percent chance to reach at least six wins, which would be enough to make a bowl game. The brunt of the schedule comes in September, and then after it gets a lot more manageable with five of its final seven games coming at home.
So there’s still plenty of season left to play. The sky isn’t falling. If anything, this group is in a much better position than they were a few weeks ago, and they know it.
“No worries at all. We’ll be just fine. I suppose it’d be the two-time national champion right there and we just went toe-to-toe,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to finish the game and win, but we just went toe-to-toe with them. We’ll be just fine, no worries.”
