Tale of two halves leaves South Carolina offense in unclear place following Texas A&M

Less than five minutes into South Carolina’s final road game of the season against No. 3 Texas A&M, the Gamecocks’ leading receiver was quarterback LaNorris Sellers. The leading quarterback was wide receiver Brian Rowe Jr.

By halftime, South Carolina, the only team in the nation without a 350-yard game to that point in the season, had 312 yards. If fans wanted a new-look offense under interim offensive coordinator Mike Furrey, they got it immediately.

Unfortunately for them, the Gamecocks only totaled 76 yards the rest of the way. Meanwhile, the Aggies went on a 28-0 run, picking up 371 yards en route to a historic comeback.

The disastrous second half led to a shift in the narrative from “Why didn’t Shane Beamer let go of Mike Shula earlier?” into “Why hasn’t South Carolina fired Shane Beamer yet?” across social media.

Gamecock fans now enter the final two games of the season, and still don’t know which offense they’ll get going forward. Beamer said he knows of the fans’ frustration and confusion from Saturday and promises to fix it going forward.

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204 passing yards on 10-20 and two touchdowns in the first half to 63 yards on 6-11 in the second. From 30 points to none. Both of these stats perfectly paint the picture of the contrast of South Carolina’s offense on Saturday.

It’s not that, in Beamer’s eyes, the playcalling got more conservative; it was that the Gamecocks simply did not execute.

“I mean, they did a great job. Our whole thing was being the most physical team, and they certainly kicked our butts in the run game in the second half,” Beamer said. “We couldn’t get anything going from a run game standpoint, and that was disappointing.”

South Carolina totaled 108 rushing yards in the first half. Then, in the second, they garnered a meager 18.

“We left a lot of plays out there in the run game and the pass game. Had some open receivers that weren’t able to connect with for whatever reason, all the way to that last drive,” Beamer said. “They just did a good job of playing better in the second half than we did.”

Sellers thought the main issue came from the Aggies making more plays than they did in the second half. The redshirt sophomore quarterback enjoyed the playcalling from his interim coordinator on Saturday afternoon.

“I think they just played harder, honestly. They came out there and did what they did to get momentum. It’s a momentum game and they had momentum in the second half,” Sellers said.

Additionally, Wide receiver Vandrevius Jacobs said he felt he personally left too many plays out on the field in the loss. He is sure he is not the only one who feels that way.

“I feel like we looked pretty good, it’s just the second half,” Jacobs said. ” … You can’t have that. Continued to need us. Defense needed us. You can’t have that. It’s just not going to work ever.”

That said, it still does not completely take away from South Carolina’s dominant opening 30 minutes of football.

Throughout the opening half, Beamer thought the offense did a great job of attacking the Aggies’ defense in new ways.

“Mike and the offensive staff, I thought, did a really good job of putting a plan together,” Beamer said. “Having an opportunity to study for two weeks and having a good understanding of their defense and what they were trying to do certainly helped us.”

The Gamecocks did not do anything radical, outside of a couple of trick plays; they just played with a higher confidence than before. The biggest change Sellers saw was the offense taking more shots downfield.

In terms of things that were newly installed, there was not much. They installed some things, but they were not completely foreign ideas to the players.

“Just opening up the box and trying to get the ball in guys’ hands and let them make one-on-one plays. That’s the biggest thing. Just taking shots in the air, stuff like that,” Sellers said.

Jacobs said that in order to win on Saturday, they needed to continue to win those one-on-one opportunities.

“We’ve got to win those one-on-ones every time. It was crucial this week; coach always brought it up. It’s just some plays they just played harder,” Jacobs said.

Going forward, now that bowl eligibility is out of the picture, South Carolina focuses on building for the future.

“We’re just not doing the things that we need to to win, and that’s on me,” Beamer said. “I’m going to get it fixed where, next year at this time, we’re sitting here not feeling sick about not being bowl eligible, but we’re sitting here talking about a playoff run and what we’re about to do in December.”

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