Shane Beamer’s “Plan to Win” Exposes South Carolina Run Game Weaknesses

NCAA Football: South Carolina at Missouri — Sep 20, 2025; Columbia, Missouri, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer reacts to play against the Missouri Tigers during the second half of the game at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images

Shane Beamer carries a different, more self-aware persona than most college football coaches. He does do something that is common in the sport. For South Carolina to win games, they follow what he describes as a “Plan to Win.” This plan includes six facets that are seemingly universal.

1. Run the ball
2. Stop the run
3. Win the turnover battle
4. Win the explosive play battle
5. Play smart football (penalties)
6. Dominate the fourth quarter

According to Beamer, if they check three of those boxes, they will win the football game. Two of those boxes have gone unchecked all season long.

South Carolina struggles to run the ball and stop the run. The Gamecocks rank last in rushing yards per game (80.25) and 14th in rushing yards allowed per game (152). Opponents are out-gaining them on the ground 608-321. Their leading rusher, Rahsul Faison, has just 140 yards through four games. Last week at Missouri, the Tigers had 185 yards on the ground, compared to -9 by the Gamecocks.

“There’s some serious issues when you rush for negative yards and you haven’t been able to run the ball consistently enough,” Beamer said on Tuesday. “I told our coaches that there’s a 4-game body of work that says it’s not good enough. We have to fix it. How do you do that? You continue to build on some of the things that we are doing well. It’s maybe tweaking personnel in some areas, it’s tweaking schemes in some areas, but it’s not a ‘go in here and blow things up.’… It’s nowhere near good enough and we have to be better.”

Get the Daily On3 Newsletter in your inbox every morning

By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.

Beamer Knows McGowan Can Go

Missouri’s Ahmad Hardy is a problem for everyone. The SEC’s leading rusher is arguably the best in college football this season. Hardy nearly transferred to Kentucky this offseason. Instead, Kentucky brought in Dante Dowdell and Seth McGowan. The latter ranks third in the SEC in rushing yards per game (91.6) and second in rushing touchdowns (6). Beamer didn’t have to run on the tape to know that McGowan will be a challenge for South Carolina.

“This freaking running back they got coming in from Kentucky that will be here this weekend, you better wrap his butt up,” said Beamer. “He and I were together at Oklahoma (in 2020). I know he runs with violence. We better get hats to the ball on this guy, or it’ll be another long night.”

High-flying passing attacks have not dominated this series. You have to effectively run the football to grind out a close win. Even though the stats are ugly for South Carolina, Beamer believes the Gamecocks are close to checking another box in the Plan to Win.

“The fact that we played like garbage in so many ways (against Missouri), but we were leading going into the fourth quarter, just imagine if we can get all of this other stuff fixed — everything is fixable — how good this football team can be.”