South Carolina’s hopes of a late comeback against Missouri slipped away in the final minute of Saturday’s 29-20 loss, undone once again by penalties and missed opportunities.
With just under a minute left and the Gamecocks facing a manageable third-and-three at their own 47-yard line, disaster struck. Movement along the offensive line drew whistles and yellow flags. Referee Lee Hedrick’s announcement felt all too familiar for Shane Beamer’s team:
“False start, offense, No. 74. Five-yard penalty, fourth down.”
The penalty, charged to freshman lineman Josiah Thompson, pushed South Carolina back to fourth-and-eight. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers found Nyck Harbor on the ensuing play, but Missouri linebacker Josiah Trotter stopped him five yards short, sealing the Gamecocks’ defeat and sending them to 2-2 on the season.
Penalties pile up
Thompson’s false start wasn’t an isolated miscue — it was the 14th penalty of the night, costing South Carolina a staggering 98 yards. Combined with the 85 yards in penalties from last week’s blowout loss to Vanderbilt, the pattern has become impossible to ignore.
Beamer even quoted Albert Einstein in frustration afterward:
“The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over again. When you have 14 penalties on the road, something’s got to change, starting with me.”
Several flags came at pivotal moments. In the third quarter, another call on Thompson for holding wiped out a key conversion, forcing the Gamecocks to settle for a field goal instead of pushing for a touchdown. Later, a facemask penalty on defensive lineman Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy gave Missouri a fresh set of downs and cost South Carolina precious time for its final possession.
Beamer’s blunt assessment
For Beamer, penalties were just one part of a bigger problem. The ground game was nonexistent once again, as South Carolina finished with minus-nine rushing yards compared to Missouri’s 285.
“I just told them in the locker room, when you get out-rushed 285 to minus-nine, you’re not going to win,” Beamer said. “When you are in the red zone like we were and went backwards, it’s going to be hard to win. When you have, once again, 14 penalties, it’s going to be hard to win.”
Execution, Beamer added, was another glaring issue. He pointed to the team’s second-to-last drive as an example:
“It was three plays, and there’s opportunities there to make plays. We ran the quarterback counter into the boundary, and we don’t block the corner or the safety — which just can’t happen. Second down, I think, we throw the ball down the field, and we stopped running. And then, third down, we got a guy [Vandrevius Jacobs] wide open across the middle, and we’re not able to connect.”
Familiar territory
The result leaves South Carolina in a now-familiar position: a 2-2 start with pressing questions about discipline, execution, and direction.
Beamer admitted that fixing things won’t be easy:
“It’s a challenge, but that’s what we get paid to do. We got to look at everything: schematically, personnel, everything that we’re doing,” he said. “We need to get better this week, and that’s all you can do: sit here and look at where you can be better at, and continue to attack that and work.”
The Gamecocks return home next weekend, searching for answers — and hoping to break a cycle that has quickly derailed their SEC hopes.
