Entering November, has South Carolina football finally fixed its offense?
After South Carolina’s 29-22 loss to No. 4 Alabama on Saturday, Shane Beamer confirmed what most observers figured: The Gamecocks had simplified their offensive plan.
As it looked like USC (3-5, 1-5 SEC) was going to pull the upset, it was easy to think about the Gamecocks’ miraculous 2022 win over No. 5 Tennessee. If you remember, the game before South Carolina scored six points in a blowout loss to Florida. The offense looked dead. Then, somehow, they scored 63 points a week later against one of the best teams in America.
Beamer admitted after that Tennessee win that the Gamecocks “streamlined” the offense. Naturally, it was that precedent of a late-season offensive surge that seemed to best explain how a Gamecocks’ offense that averaged the fewest points in the SEC was on the verge of beating Alabama.
Except, a few days removed, it doesn’t fit so well.
That 2022 team scored 63 points(!) in one game. The 2025 Gamecocks managed 39 points — for the month of October.
Even against Alabama, the Gamecocks’ offense was not a buzz saw. They finished with 333 total yards, converted just over 35% on third down and scored just one touchdown on their three red-zone trips.
And, yet, it looked so much better than it had all season. Which leads to the question: How simplified was the offense?
“It wasn’t drastic,” Beamer said. “(It was maybe) 15 less than what we had against Oklahoma. When you do that, you’re able to practice it against more (defensive) looks in practice.”
But it wasn’t just that the offense had less plays, but new plays. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers seemingly threw more passes outside the pocket than he had in any game this season, the product of offensive coordinator Mike Shula calling more roll-outs and sprint options.
For Shula, perhaps the thing he’s done best this season is calling an opening series — or, better known, the scripted plays. A theme of South Carolina’s 2025 offense: The offense looks crisp on its opening drive, then all rhythm seems to tail off.
Those scripted plays are referred to as, “openers,” and Beamer wondered why Shula wasn’t using them more throughout the game.
“I’m looking at these openers of our top 10 to 20 plays,” Beamer said. “There’s some really good stuff in here because of what we’re doing schematically. ... And I said something along the lines of, ‘We’ve got 20 plays here. To me, we can just keep calling these same 20 over and over again, because this is really our best stuff.”
Does that mean South Carolina’s offense is now fixed?
OK, fixed is the wrong word. But, certainly, Shula’s unit is improving — and should continue to do so if the offensive line stays healthy and plays the way it did against Alabama.
Normally, this would be reason for excitement. But it’s almost Halloween. South Carolina has four games remaining, including its next two at No. 7 Ole Miss and No. 3 Texas A&M.
If you’re a fan, it’s sort of bittersweet. Sure, it’s great to see the offense finally look competent, and surely that gives South Carolina a better shot of beating Clemson. But why couldn’t Beamer and Shula figured this out in, say, September?
To Beamer’s point, the Gamecocks’ offense did not drastically change. But it did evolve and get better. The hope, for great teams, is that those little improvements compound over the course of a season, and they’re miles better in November than they were in September.
South Carolina is not on that timeline. But it might be better against Clemson than it was against Alabama.
How much better? That’s still to be seen.
Gameday details
- Who: South Carolina at Ole Miss
- When: 7 p.m. Saturday
- Where: Vaught Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.
- Watch: ESPN
- Line: Ole Miss by 12.5
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
