Shane Beamer explains what South Carolina defense has to do to stop Missouri's Luther Burden III
South Carolina’s struggles against the passing game have been evident. In a way, it’s been the achilles heel for the defense this year.
In two of their last three games, the Gamecocks have given up over 400 yards through the air. They’ve given up 40 points in back-to-back games. And in the last three games, there’s been a receiver has amassed more than 100 yards, exploiting the secondary.
It won’t get any easier this week when South Carolina travels to Missouri. The Tigers have a great quarterback in Brady Cook along with some talented receivers in Luther Burden III and Theo Wease Jr.
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The biggest challenge for the defense will be to stop Burden, though.
“You can’t completely change the defense just because you’re going up against him,” Shane Beamer said. “I mean, you watch their explosive play tape of runs over 12 yards and passes over 18, so much of it is a short intermediate throw to him and then he makes about three or four people miss and it’s a 40-yard gain.”
Burden has posed a problem for defenses this year. He’s the second leading receiver in the SEC with 56 catches for 808 yards and five touchdowns. He had five straight games with over 100 receiving yards.
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But while he’s a threat on the outside, he can be stopped. Even though Missouri beat Kentucky 38-21 last week, Burden only had two catches for 15 yards.
And while it means nothing in the grand scheme, South Carolina held its own against him last year. He only had two catches for five yards. However, that was against defensive backs like Cam Smith and Darius Rush.
The key for the defense will be to have great technique and fundamentals of rallying to the ball, Beamer said.
“You’re not going to be able to line up and play man coverage every single snap against him but that’s what we do here at South Carolina,” Beamer said. “We’re not going to come in it and say, we’ve played man coverage every game this year but now we’re not. We’re going to mix it up, we certainly have to mix coverages up, which is what we did last Saturday, as well.”
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It’s not just covering him that the Gamecocks have to worry about, though. Burden also returns punts for the Tigers. He hasn’t broke for a touchdown yet, but Beamer knows not to undermine him.
“It’ll be a big challenge because he’s a fantastic player. And then, he’s got really good people around him as well,” Beamer said. “You add the fact they have a running quarterback that can run with design runs. They present a lot of problems but certainly Luther Burden’s right at the top.”
