Shane Beamer reacts: What South Carolina coach said after loss to Missouri
South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer summed up his team’s performance Saturday against Missouri in one word: inconsistent.
The first-year Gamecocks coach praised his team’s start and the way his team rallied back in the fourth quarter in the 31-28 loss to the Tigers on Saturday at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri. But it was the team’s effort in the second and third quarters that cost them a chance at a second-straight Southeastern Conference win and left them still one win from being bowl-eligible.
South Carolina (5-5) needs to win one of its final two home games against Auburn or Clemson to play in a bowl game.
“Just sloppy football,” Beamer said. “I thought we had a really good week of practice and the mindset was really good throughout the week. We looked like a good team at times, and at times like we had been patting ourselves on the back all week. That is disappointing and it starts with me. Missed tackles on defense, couple of busts assignment-wise. … Just not very clean. That starts with me.
“I know our guys will fight. They showed that throughout the game and never flinched. They always thought they were going to win that football game.”
Beamer also touched on other things during his postgame talk with reporters:
Offensive line issues
South Carolina’s offensive line struggled against Missouri’s pass rush. The Tigers had seven quarterback pressures and three sacks in the game. The Tigers also scored a defensive touchdown when they stripped quarterback Jason Brown and then Irmo High product Trajan Jeffcoat recovered for a touchdown.
“It was a host of things,” Beamer said. “Sometimes when you are in an odd man protection and they bring six, you have to get rid of the ball. There were some communication issues. … That shouldn’t happen in the 10th game of the season. Really, really, really disappointing tonight.”
Stopping Missouri’s run game
South Carolina couldn’t stop Missouri running back Tyler Badie, and Beamer talked about the many missed tackles during the game. The SEC’s leading rusher ran it for 209 yards and a TD. He had 51 yards on the Tigers’ possession as Missouri was able to run out the clock.
“We knew we needed to stop Badie,” Beamer said. “Obviously we didn’t do a good job of that. Obviously, we talked about gang tackling and we missed too many tackles.”
Gamecock running game
Beamer was asked if they did a good enough job attacking Missouri with the running game. The Tigers were ranked last in SEC in run defense giving up 478 yards a game. South Carolina was coming off a big performance on the ground against Florida in which they ran it 42 times for 284 yards. Against Missouri, the Gamecocks carried it 35 times for just 57 yards. USC had minus-50 yards in the running game from quarterback Jason Brown.
“We had 65 plays and we ran it almost half the time,” Beamer said. “We had to crank up the tempo at the end to get points. I know they had struggles against the run but a lot of that got skewed against Tennessee. They are better against the run. Georgia couldn’t run the ball against them in the first half.
“We should have been able to run the ball better against them, and that is disappointing. We tried some different schemes and it wasn’t good enough. But I do feel we tried to attack them with the running game.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2021 at 8:23 PM with the headline "Shane Beamer reacts: What South Carolina coach said after loss to Missouri."
