Head coach Shane Beamer is the type of coach who typically comes out and gives a long, descriptive opening statement after a game.
After a hard-fought loss like South Carolina’s game against Alabama on Saturday, there just wasn’t a lot to say. It just hurt.
“I hurt for them because we’re sick of this feeling, and they work too hard during the week to come in here on Saturdays and feel like that in that locker room,” Beamer said.
The Gamecocks lost on the road to the Crimson Tide 27-25 at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and it was a heavily contested game, especially after halftime.
“Obviously a great college football game,” Beamer said. “Congrats to Alabama. They made more plays than we did at the end. Proud of the fight of our team coming down here.”
They made big plays, scoring 12 points within the last two minutes of the game. But it didn’t catch anybody off guard, as they know they’re good enough to get it done week in and week out in the SEC, where “life is really, really hard,” he said.
“No one was surprised by our performance,” Beamer said. “We expected this. We competed our butts off — all three phases. Everybody expected to win the football game. Came up a little bit short at the end, but really, really proud of our guys.”
Beamer doesn’t care about what the narrative is when it comes to his team. He just wanted the Gamecocks to come out and perform, because they’re capable of winning against any team, he said.
The performance this week “says that every week’s different,” Beamer said. “People can put lines of what they want talking about us, how they want to talk about us. It’s amazing to me, from Kentucky, the way we performed. The perception of our team was really, really high, and then we had a crappy performance last Saturday, and all of a sudden the narrative is we ain’t worth it.”
South Carolina is 3-3 on the season and 1-3 in the SEC. The lone conference win was a 31-6 road victory over Kentucky. USC lost at home 36-33 to LSU and 27-3 to Ole Miss.
The Gamecocks turned the ball over four times Saturday: three fumbles and an interception.
The first two turnovers, both fumbles in the second quarter, weren’t costly on the scoreboard. But the second two were insurmountable for USC’s upset bid.
The third fumble of the game, lost by quarterback LaNorris Sellers deep in Gamecock territory, turned into seven points for Alabama three plays later. Meanwhile, Sellers’ interception came on the last play of the game, as USC was hoping to get into range to strike quickly and take the lead in the final minute of the game.
“You can’t go on the road in the SEC and turn the ball over,” Beamer said.
Prior to that interception, the Gamecocks fought down the field and scored a touchdown to bring them to within two points with just under a minute left. But they couldn’t convert on the two-point try.
It was a play they’ve practiced often, but the Alabama pressure came quick and blew it up. Sellers overthrew his receiver.
Sellers finished 23-of-31 with a season-high 238 yards and two touchdowns, igniting an offense that struggled the previous week.
“We talked about it at the hotel early this morning before we came over here, that we needed to have great poise,” Beamer said. “That you’re on the road in front of 100,000 people in one of the greatest environments in college athletics, and there’s going to be adversity. And we have to stay together and just push through and stay poised. And we did. ... Our guys just kept hanging in there.”
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