South Carolina Trending Upwards

The South Carolina Gamecocks got off to a rough start this season, but Shane Beamer believes the team is trending up.

While most of the fanbase recognized the challenge the first three games presented for South Carolina, a decent portion of fans felt the team had a long way to go. Sometimes the best medicine to working out the kinks is to have a lighter part of the schedule to play through, which the Gamecocks got after defeating Charlotte and South Carolina State in their last two contests.

During media availability after the matchup against the Bulldogs, a reporter asked Beamer if he felt the team was playing good football or if he needed more time to gauge that. Beamer had no hesitation with his answer.

"No, I think we're playing good football. Winning's hard, and I realize that people said 'Okay, coming off that Georgia game, they got two non-conference games, they're gonna win no matter what.' and all that's not the truth," Beamer stated. "You've got to work hard. These are good football teams that we played that [have] got good players... are we playing our best football, no. There's a lot to clean up, but I saw a lot of signs of us getting better as a football team over the last couple of weeks... We're a work in progress. We're five games in, and I think we're a better football team than we were two or three weeks ago when I sat in here after the Georgia game, [but] we've gotta get a lot better though, there's no question about it as we go into all SEC play and then Clemson at the end of the season."

Beamer later talked about what he had learned about the team with how they've responded in the past few weeks and pointed to their impervious collective mindset.

"That they're a resilient group, they love to practice. They're a fun group to be around; they really are. I mean, we've dealt with a lot of adversity already this season just with injuries and things like that, but they haven't gone out to the practice field where you gotta motivate them to practice," Beamer explained. "I mean, they really enjoy being around each other, and we've talked the last couple of weeks and then this week as well that we need to forget the football stuff. We needed to get closer as a football team and more connected and feel like we have, and it's a fun group to be around and love to work, and need to continue to get better."

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