A dejected Shane Beamer walked into his postgame press conference after a 27-3 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday. He’s coached a lot of football up to this point, but this loss was about as tough of a pill for him to swallow.
“Probably the most disappointed that I have ever been as a head football coach,” Beamer said, “in the way that we played and that starts with me as the head football coach.”
It’s not so much the disappointment in South Carolina losing the game. More so disappointed in how it happened. It had two weeks to prepare for this game. Yet the results couldn’t have been much worse.
From start to finish, Ole Miss looked like the better football team on Saturday, the one that may have wanted it more. The Rebels were coming off a mistake-filled loss to Kentucky just a week earlier. But this time around, it was the Gamecocks making the mistakes in this game.
A lot went wrong for South Carolina. The decision to run a fake punt on the offense’s first possession, let alone on 4th and 1, didn’t work. Beamer wished he could have that play call back, but it wasn’t just that one miscue that caused the loss. It set the wheels in motion for everything that came after, though.
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Much later in the first half, Kyle Kennard came up with a big first-down sack after being held to the ground. Rather than decline the holding penalty and set up a long 2nd and 17 play for Ole Miss, Beamer chose to accept it and give the Rebels an extra down, which they would later take advantage of in the drive and score a touchdown to go up 24-3.
“I don’t really remember on that one,” said Beamer, unable to give an answer on why he made that choice. “I can’t remember exactly. I’ll have an answer for you (Sunday) night on the teleconference. I’ve got to think back. There was a good reason for it, for sure.”
It wasn’t just Beamer’s decision-making that proved to be an issue. South Carolina also did itself no favors with self-inflicted mistakes in the penalty department. The Gamecocks racked up eight penalties for 80 yards, four of which were offsides calls on third down.
Now through five games, the team is up to 41 penalties for a grand total of 377 yards. Every week, it’s been the same discussion of needing to be better and limiting these mistakes. But it just hasn’t happened. It’s continued to hamper South Carolina in every game this season.
“We talked coming into this game, Ole Miss was the most penalized team in the SEC. They have played the most games obviously so they had a lot of penalties. But penalty yards per game, I think they were averaging close to 90 per game. We talked all week about being the most poised and disciplined team. We were undisciplined, to say the least (Saturday). That starts with me as the head coach,” Beamer said.
“You talk about multiple offsides penalty, a taunting penalty, two offensive pass interference penalties. We have to burn a timeout on that last drive on a critical third or fourth down play because we can’t get lined up the correct way. Really, really, really disappointing. That is completely on me. We all need to look ourselves in the mirror. I have to do a better job because we had a great week of practice and I am shocked at the way we played, just to be completely frank and honest with you.”
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And the constant issue with the penalties has been some of them were avoidable. The biggest instance of this came in the third quarter after Dylan Stewart sacked Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart on third down.
Stewart’s way of showing his excitement after making a big play ended up proving costly. As Dart laid on the ground, Stewart hovered over him and pretended to shoot him with a shotgun using hand gestures.
It wasn’t long before the officials threw a flag and penalized Stewart for unsportsmanlike conduct, a 15-yard penalty that came with South Carolina losing by 21 points.
Beamer said he spoke to Stewart after the game about his mistake and nothing more beyond admitting he did talk to him.
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This didn’t end up being a game decided by penalties. It just ended up being one factor in a laundry list full of mistakes on Saturday for South Carolina. Much like every other week, Beamer and co. will once again be looking to figure out how to limit the self-inflicted wounds as best they can.
“We cost ourselves with penalties in that game. I haven’t done a good enough job of helping those guys learn from that one because it costed us again (Saturday), as well,” Beamer said. “We have to be better. Get to go on the road next week. Have a lot of work to do. Still believe in this football team. We have shown so many signs of being a really good football team. We weren’t that (Saturday).”
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