Shane Beamer on winless SEC start ahead of Kentucky: 'We are not where we need to be.'

South Carolina was, again, the media darling of the SEC entering the 2025 season, picked to finish fifth in the SEC with First Team All-SEC talents LaNorris Sellers (QB) and Dylan Stewart (DL) leading the offense and defense, respectively. The Gamecocks earned the fifth-most votes to win the league, Shane Beamer‘s group a trendy College Football Playoff contender with a future so bright you need dorky sunglasses to block the sun.

That led to a 0-2 start in SEC play, starting with a 31-7 blowout loss at home to Vanderbilt and followed by a 29-20 road loss at No. 23 Missouri. Oh, and the Cocks still have a run of five straight top-20 matchups from October 11 through November 15, three being on the road and three being top-10 competition.

Those CFP dreams are now bowl eligibility hopes, and Kentucky‘s trip to Williams-Brice Stadium next weekend will go a long way in deciding that. Point being, the warning lights are flashing in Columbia. Beamer shared some of those concerns leaving the other Columbia with a loss on Saturday.

Is it fixable?

“That’s what we get paid to do,” Beamer said. “We have to look at everything schematically, personnel, everything that we’re doing. Unfortunately, we have been here before. We’re 2-2, we’re a third of the way through the regular season. We are not where we need to be right now. We are coming back home on Saturday night for another SEC game. We need to get better this week and that’s all you can do.”

South Carolina started the year 3-3 in 2024 before winning six straight to wrap up the regular season with a 9-3 record. The year before, the Gamecocks started 2-2 and lost four straight before ending the year 5-7. In 2022, it was a 1-3 start and an 8-4 finish.

Beamer is no stranger to this fork in the road for his program, watching so-so starts swing one way or the other at this point in the season. Where will this one go? Kentucky will help decide that.

“Sit here and look at where you can be better at and continue to attack that and work,” Beamer said. “We are a third of the way through. We have been a team that always gotten better as the season goes and confident that this year will be no different. Nobody thought that we would be sitting here at 2-2.”

The road will be difficult, but the Gamecocks see the path through. One way or another, the Wildcats are a part of that path.

“We know the schedule doesn’t get any easier,” he continued. “But at the same time, to have so many things that aren’t winning football tonight and still have the lead going into the fourth quarter, it’s one of those where you think, OK, if we can continue to get better and clean a lot of this stuff up, then we have a chance to be the team that we thought we were going to be.”

It’s Kentucky’s job to derail South Carolina in that pursuit — and the Wildcats will do it with revenge on the brain after taking a 31-6 loss at Kroger Field last season. We’ll find out at 7:45 p.m. ET on September 27.