South Carolina leaves Missouri with a loss, more questions than answers
There’s just something about the city of Columbia, Missouri.
South Carolina football hasn’t won there since 2017, and that drought extended on Saturday night. Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks couldn’t get the job done, losing 29-20 to No. 23 Missouri.
With the loss, South Carolina is now 2-2 on the season. Despite the close game, the Gamecocks, who came into the season with sky-high expectations, are now seemingly leaving Missouri with more questions than answers as for why the team is struggling.
What’s up with the run game?
South Carolina totaled negative nine rushing yards against Missouri on Saturday night.
Yes, you read that correctly.
“When you get out-rushed 285 to minus nine, you’re not gonna win,” Beamer said.
Five different Gamecocks logged a carry in the game. South Carolina gained 39 rushing yards but lost 48. Most of those lost yards came via Missouri’s five sacks of QB LaNorris Sellers.
Oscar Adaway and Matthew Fuller led South Carolina with seven rushing yards apiece. Rahsul Faison was right behind them with five rushing yards of his own. Brian Rowe logged one carry for zero yards, and Sellers had 10 carries for minus-28 yards.
“We’ve just gotta be better,” Sellers said. “Just gotta execute better.”
Beamer didn’t have an answer right away as for what South Carolina should pin its struggles in the run game on.
“I don’t know,” Beamer said. “I’d have to look at the tape. Too many sacks, negative plays. But we didn’t gain a lot either. Gotta look at it.”
Some of the blame, at least in the loss to Missouri, could be attributed on injury issues in the trenches. South Carolina shook up its offensive line in the game, opting to move Boaz Stanley to right guard and slide Nolan Hay into the starting center spot.
The Gamecocks proceeded to lose right tackle Cason Henry to injury on the first play and lost Hay later in the game. Trovon Baugh was also dealing with a nagging injury, Beamer said.
“I think we can figure it out,” Sellers said. “I mean, last year’s pretty much in the same situation. Started off slow at the beginning of the year, got it rolling later. Including me, we can all get better.”
What’s up with all the missed tackles?
The missed tackle bug bit South Carolina again, a week after it plagued the Gamecocks in the loss to Vanderbilt.
Missouri ran the ball 48 times for 285 yards. The Tigers were led by star running back Ahmad Hardy, who ran for 138 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries.
“Just really, really, really disappointing,” Beamer said of the missed tackles. “We’ve said it all week: You’ve gotta get 11 hats to the ball on this guy and tackle him. Give them credit. When you run for 285, you run for 285. But a lot of those are because of missed tackles, losing leverage or whatever it might be. All 11 gotta get there.”
Hardy’s yards-after-contact stats won’t be available right away — ProFootballFocus usually has that available on Sunday — but he was seemingly able to break tackles at will on Saturday.
“We’ve just got to wrap up, and everybody gets to the ball,” Jalon Kilgore said. “... He’s a really good back, and he doesn’t go down just off of one tackle or arm tackle. So we just gotta gang tackle and everybody’s got to get to the ball.”
South Carolina generally was a good tackling team last year. The Gamecocks were No. 7 in the SEC with an overall PFF tackling grade of 77.2. Beamer and his defensive coordinator Clayton White stressed there was an emphasis of getting back to those ways for the Missouri game. The Gamecocks continued to struggle.
The Gamecocks need to “stick to the basics” this coming week in practice, Kilgore said.
“Same thing, just stick to the basics,” Kilgore said. “... We’ve been a great talking team for the past few years, and we’ve just got to continue to do that. I don’t know if it’s a mindset thing, a physicality thing, but everybody’s got to come together and just figure out what that is.”
Why are penalties still a problem?
South Carolina had a whopping 14 penalties for 98 yards against Missouri.
“When you have, once again, 14 penalties, it’s going to be hard to win,” Beamer said.
Of those penalties, nine came on offense and five on defense.
South Carolina had seven pre-snap penalties in the game — six of which were false-start penalties called on the offense.
“I think it’s hard to say it’s one bad night when we’ve had the number of pre-snap penalties that we’ve had,” Beamer said. “... The definition of insanity is continuing the same thing over and over again. When you have 14 penalties on the road, something’s gotta change. Starting with me.”
Sellers said the solution is simple. The Gamecocks just need to lock in — and listen.
“You just gotta lock in on it. It’s pretty much keying into my voice,” Beamer said. “...Yeah it’s loud we’re in the SEC and all that, but we’re gonna play places (and) it’s gonna get louder.”
South Carolina took a 20-18 lead into the fourth quarter, but penalties showed up late and were part of the reason the Gamecocks only totaled 19 yards in the final period, Sellers said.
