What will South Carolina's bye week look like? Shane Beamer provides insight

South Carolina is now in the midst of its first bye week of the 2025 campaign. But the Gamecocks won’t be treating it as a break, and they will be hard at work finding ways to turn their season around.

“We’re 3-2 coming out of September. We certainly hoped and expected to be 5-0 in a lot of ways, and we’re not,” head coach Shane Beamer said after South Carolina’s 35-13 win over Kentucky on Saturday. “We’re 3-2 and got an off week to get healthy and get better and keep working.”

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Completing such a turnaround won’t be easy, as the Gamecocks face a gauntlet of a schedule in October and early November. South Carolina will head to Death Valley in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and take on No. 13 LSU in its first matchup after this week’s bye.

Before their next bye the week of Nov. 3, the Gamecocks will face two top-10 opponents at home (No. 5 Oklahoma and No. 10 Alabama) before encountering another on the road (No. 4 Ole Miss).

After that second bye, yet another SEC team currently ranked in the top 10 — No. 6 Texas A&M — will await the Gamecocks during their stretch run to the end of the season.

Beamer, though, isn’t letting South Carolina get ahead of itself just yet. The Gamecocks tend to take things week by week, and that won’t change during this break in their schedule.

That process for preparing for the Tigers, and the rest of South Carolina’s tough remaining schedule, begins with self-scouting. Beamer said that the Gamecocks’ three coordinators — Mike Shula on offense, Clayton White on defense and Joe DeCamillis on special teams — will work on this exercise with each of their respective position groups on Monday, when players will be in the building from 8 a.m. to around 11 or 11:30 a.m.

Once players have left the practice facility, South Carolina’s coaching staff will continue self-scouting into the afternoon hours.

“We really need to do a deep dive,” Beamer said during his teleconference with reporters on Sunday, “on ‘Okay, these are the things that we’re really good at. We need to continue to do these things and find better ways of doing them. These are the things that maybe we’re not so good at, so maybe we need to lessen how much we’re doing or work on more to get better at it.'”

Then, the Gamecocks’ focus will shift slightly from themselves to their next opponent.

LSU, just like South Carolina, will have the luxury of recuperating ahead of the two teams’ matchup on Oct. 11. The Tigers, coming off a 24-19 loss to now-No. 4 Ole Miss this past weekend, are similarly looking to swing momentum back in their favor after experiencing an early setback.

“There’ll be a little bit of LSU [preparation] tomorrow as a coaching staff. We’ll really grind tomorrow afternoon as a staff, primarily on ourselves, but being prepared to introduce LSU a little bit in practice on Tuesday,” Beamer said. “I would certainly say Tuesday and Wednesday, [we’re] still [focusing on] us. But [we’ll] really get going on LSU Tuesday and Wednesday and after practice.”

South Carolina’s staff will spend the remaining two days of the work week on the recruiting trail. Beamer’s assistants have been checking in on the Gamecocks’ targets on Friday nights throughout the season. He, however, hasn’t joined them because of his obligations to remain at the team hotel with his players.

Beamer said he will take advantage of having that obligation temporarily slashed off his to-do list by hitting the road.

“I think I’ll be in five states on Thursday and Friday, recruiting and trying to see a lot of guys. As a head coach, you’re limited because the month of December is now a dead period. … So, really, for a head coach, it’s the month of January and the off weeks,” Beamer said.

“Some head coaches use the off week to not recruit and rest up, and that’s their prerogative. But I like to get out on the road, so I’m looking forward to being in high schools and being at some high school games this week.”

South Carolina — with its No. 17 recruiting class in 2026, according to Rivals, and claims from Beamer that it’s “off to a great start” with players from the class of 2027 — could see its recruiting momentum reach another level with an improved on-field product this season. Beamer said no stone will go unturned to figure out how the team can finish 2025 on a high note.

“I think you look at every area and say that you can improve. Even in a great win last night, where we did so much good, there are a lot of things that leave a lot of room for improvement,” Beamer said. “When you’re five games in, there’s a pretty big body of work that you can look at to say, ‘Here’s areas to improve on.’”

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