COLUMBIA, S.C. — Shane Beamer knew what was coming late Saturday when he walked into his post-game press conference. How could he not?
If there were any doubts, the Williams-Brice Stadium scoreboard that showed Mississippi State’s 41-34 win over favored South Carolina – and the boos from the home crowd that began raining down early in the fourth quarter when the Bulldogs were erasing a 23-14 halftime deficit – should’ve confirmed it. This loss was ugly, and deflating.
Like the fans doing the booing probably remembered, USC’s sixth-year coach could’ve flashed back a year to the 2025 season, when a Gamecocks team expected to challenge for a spot in the College Football Playoffs after a 9-4 season in 2024, instead stumbled to a 4-8 mark, their worst under Beamer. Certainly, there were elements of that debacle of a season in Saturday’s game, to wit:
A blown 16-0 lead midway through the second quarter, capped by a third quarter in which USC managed just five yards of offense and suffered two interceptions while Mississippi State was reeling off 17 of its eventual 27 straight points en route to a 41-23 lead. That the Gamecocks staged a too-little-too-late rally to make the final score look closer than it was didn’t mitigate the pain; by that time, most of the announced crowd of 78,360 had exited the stadium.
For those who followed last season, this felt all too familiar. Remember USC’s late-season visit to College Station, Texas? A Gamecocks team in the throes of a four-game (soon to be five) losing streak roared to a 30-3 halftime lead vs. the Aggies, only to collapse in the final 30 minutes when Texas A&M reeled off 28 straight points to win, 31-30.
Three games into 2026, after two lopsided wins vs. non-conference competition, Beamer had to hope this game was not an indicator that the woes of 2025 were resurfacing. His next assignment is to convince his team (and to a lesser degree, the USC fan base) that the Gamecocks can shake off this collapse and bounce back … immediately, since their next game is at always-formidable Alabama, a 50-36 winner over Florida State on Saturday.
“I know all of you guys (media) … you’re going to define this team based on what just happened tonight,” Beamer said. “And that’s not the case. We’ll be defined, this team will, by how we respond (to) this night.”
Beamer stressed that this is “a completely different team. There’s a lot of guys that weren’t even here last year, and 2026 is a new year.” But he realized that argument lost some weight, given Saturday’s results. “I get it, we blew a 16-point lead (and) it’s easy to look back and talk about the leads that we blew last year. It’s the story that’s going to be written, and I get it.
“But this is a completely different team (with) unbelievable leadership, and I know they’ll respond the right way. (I’m) eager to get back to work with these guys and see if we can be better next Saturday night” in Tuscaloosa. “We’re three games in and there’s a lot to correct from tonight.”
Is there ever.
Start with the player who, by dint of his position, falls into that “leadership” role: quarterback LaNorris Sellers, who in 2024 was viewed as a future Heisman Trophy candidate, only to regress in 2025.
On paper, Sellers’ numbers – 25-of-40 passing for 282 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions, plus 52 net yards rushing – were comparable to MSU quarterback Kamario Taylor’s (18-of-26, 251 yards, four TDs vs. one interception, and 33 yards rushing). But Taylor looked in total control in leading the Bulldogs’ comeback. Even in the first half, he engineered two warp-speed drives, throwing touchdown passes of 30 and 43 yards in possessions requiring a bit more than two minutes playing time.
Sellers, meanwhile, led USC on four scoring drives before halftime and had a touchdown pass to tight end Maurice Brown II. But the other three drives ended in field goals, the first when Sellers’ 1-yard keeper for an apparent touchdown was erased by a Matthew Fuller holding penalty; another when Sellers’ run on third-and-4 from the MSU 15 resulted in a one-yard loss; and the third after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty backed up USC from the MSU 25 to the 40.
Still, USC managed 297 yards offense before halftime. But the third period saw penalties and two Sellers interceptions result in the aforementioned MSU rally. Talk about “lies, damn lies and statistics”: the Gamecocks finished with more total offense (431 yards to 393), more passing yards, more rushing yards, more first downs (21-19) and nearly nine minutes more time of possession.
And still they lost – convincingly.
The defense, regarded as the team’s strength a year ago, didn’t cover itself in glory, either. The Bulldogs’ Taylor and fleet receivers Anthony Evans, Marquis Johnson, Zion Ragins and Sanfrisco Magee shredded USC’s secondary repeatedly. Beamer acknowledged MSU’s speed – “I told (reporters) they had four receivers that if (they) aren’t on the track team, they should be” – but conceded his secondary’s failures.
“We can’t just allow guys to just run right past us,” he said, “and that happened on a couple” of the touchdowns. “The way we play defense, our corners are gonna be on an island, and we don’t shy away from that. … They’re all really, really good players, and we’ll continue to get better. But we’ve got to play the right technique at all times.”
Indeed, this loss was as much an indictment of the Gamecocks’ play as it was a nod to Mississippi State’s. Had USC converted its first-half field goals into touchdowns, the game might’ve been decided by halftime, in the home team’s favor.
That it wasn’t again raised questions about Beamer’s off-season rebuilding job (adding portal transfers and hiring offensive coordinator Kendal Briles), Sellers’ decision-making (his interceptions on back-to-back possessions resulted in 10 Bulldogs points), coverage by the USC secondary that several times left MSU receivers wide-open, and a game plan that sputtered until the game’s final eight minutes when the Gamecocks scored 10 points, likely against the Bulldogs’ backups.
Beamer tried to paint an optimistic picture, as he should; after all, nine games remain on the regular-season schedule, with Kentucky, an upset winner last week over Texas A&M, visiting Williams-Brice a week after USC goes to Alabama, and ranked SEC foes (Tennessee, at Oklahoma, A&M and Georgia) still to face. He couldn’t totally ignore Saturday’s failures, though, any more than he could fail to hear the boos.
“Tonight really sucks, I get it, for everybody,” he said, “and it hurts in that locker room. But it’s certainly a different feeling from last season because of the men in that room. … We’ve got the right kind of guys in there.
“Tonight was really, really disappointing for all of us, but the great thing about sports … it’s all about how you respond, and we get to do this again in seven days. I know the people we have in this program, and I know we’ll respond the right way.”
They’ll have to, if Beamer and his team don’t want to be hearing about it – loudly.