COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer was adamant about his team’s approach — and the enormous challenge it faces — this week with Georgia visiting.
He emphatically told his staff on Sunday that he didn’t want to hear about “shocking the world” or how the Gamecocks only had to beat the top-ranked Bulldogs for just one Saturday of the regular season and not all 12.
“As soon as I walk out of the staff meeting, I have text messages on my phone from family members essentially telling me the same thing,” Beamer said.
The Gamecocks (1-1, 0-1 Southeastern Conference) aren’t nervous or fearful about the big, bad Bulldogs, who will be playing their SEC opener after having little notable trouble in back-to-back wins against Pac-12 member Oregon, 49-3, and Football Championship Subdivision foe Samford, 33-0.
“I don’t have to rally them to make them believe,” Beamer said. “They believe. They have confidence, they should. We are a really good SEC football team. We have really good SEC football players.”
South Carolina has struggled to show that early in Beamer’s second season leading the program. In last week’s 44-30 loss at Arkansas, the Gamecocks were mauled by the Razorbacks’ potent running game, giving up 295 yards and five touchdowns on the ground.
Georgia’s offense is led by Stetson Bennett, who has thrown for 668 yards and three touchdowns this season after helping the Bulldogs to the national championship last season. The running game hasn’t gotten lathered up yet, with 259 rushing yards through two games, but coach Kirby Smart leans on his players’ skills to shape the scheme.
“Right now, the strength of this team is probably its depth up front, experience at quarterback, and a distribution of the ball across the entire offense to make you defend 53 yards,” Smart said. “The evolution is based on what players you have.”
There is plenty of familiarity between these East Division programs.
Bulldogs co-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp was South Carolina’s head coach from 2016 to 2020. He returned to Georgia, his alma mater, as a defensive analyst before the 2021 season but took over special teams.
“He is a tremendous asset to our defensive staff,” Smart said. “He is a tremendous asset to our special teams staff. It is like having a second head coach.”
Muschamp was 17-22 in his five years at South Carolina and was 28-21 while leading Florida from 2011 to 2014. Gamecocks tailback Marshawn Lloyd said Muschamp was the reason he joined the team and has nothing but good feelings toward his former coach.
Beamer spent two years as a Georgia assistant for Smart and credits his former boss as a large influence on how he runs the program.
“Kirby Smart made me a better football coach,” Beamer said. “That was a really, really beneficial two years to be with him.”
Smart shares the defensive coordinator duties with Muschamp, and the partnership is succeeding. The Bulldogs returned to the top of the AP team rankings this week and also moved back to the nation’s No. 1 spot in scoring defense.
Georgia, which led the nation last season while allowing 10.2 points per game, has allowed only 1.5 points per game despite losing eight players off its championship defense to the NFL draft, with five of those first-round selections.
Asked about his confidence in the rebuilt group, Smart said, “You’re as good as your last outing, and that’s all I know right now.”
When Georgia most recently played at Williams-Brice Stadium in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic limited attendance. A much louder environment is expected Saturday.
“We practice that kind of thing,” Georgia linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson said. “We have noise control, and they blast it throughout the week.”