Shane Beamer considers what he can take from past seasons amid 3-3 start

South Carolina has made a habit of surging in the second half of seasons under coach Shane Beamer. And the Gamecocks will need to do it again to salvage a season that has started 3-3.

The team entered the year with College Football Playoff aspirations. Barring a run like last year’s — and some luck mixed in elsewhere — those dreams are probably dead.

But that doesn’t mean South Carolina can’t make something positive of the season. Head coach Shane Beamer explained when asked to reflect on what some of those late-season surges can teach this year’s group.

“I think the only thing I take from it is just continuing to just keep getting better,” Beamer said. “What’s next? And what’s in front of us? That’s in the past, that’s in the rearview mirror, the first six games. We’ve learned from it, but it’s behind us.”

Shane Beamer referenced the 2022 season, when South Carolina lost to Florida in Week 10, then rallied to record back-to-back top-10 wins to end the season. He also called on last season, when the Gamecocks started 3-3 and then won six straight.

“Two years ago, after Florida, last year after Ole Miss and then Alabama, it was that’s behind us, all we can control is what’s next,” Beamer said. “And right now what’s next, today it was having a great Tuesday practice, tomorrow it’s having a great Wednesday practice and then going out there and focusing on Oklahoma and trying to play really well against a really good team on Saturday.

“And just keep moving forward. Control what you can control. And keep getting better.”

South Carolina has proven under Shane Beamer that approach can pay dividends. It has worked in the past.

“That’s what I told the team out there at the end of practice today,” Beamer said. “We’ve always been a team that has gotten better as the year has gone. You can say a lot about the teams I’ve coached as the head coach, but one thing you can’t say is that we haven’t gotten better every single season as the year goes.”

Shane Beamer thinks that’s already happening with this year’s group. He’ll continue to reinforce it, but his players know the drill at this point.

Are they already turning the corner? Maybe.

“Saw signs of that. We didn’t win the game, but I saw signs of that on Saturday,” Beamer said. “And saw signs of that with the way that we went out and approached practice on Sunday night after I got off the teleconference with you guys. And the way that we practiced today I see signs of us, not signs, I see us getting better.”

So can South Carolina meaningfully turn things around? Shane Beamer believes so.

“Then the key for us that you take from previous years and then this year is we’ve just got to keep doing that and just keep moving forward,” he said. “We can’t sit around here and be sad boys because we’re 3-3 and just lost a heart-breaker in a lot of ways to LSU.

“It’s pick yourself off the mat and get ready to go again. And that’s life. And that’s what we did in ’22. That’s what we did in ’23, to a certain degree when we were sitting there at 2-6. And what we did last year, what we need to do this year as well.”