Who’s the real South Carolina? The Gamecocks are still searching for an identity

Week 1 resulted in victory. Week 2 ended in injury-plagued misery.

Yet, South Carolina head football coach Shane Beamer shared the same message with his Gamecocks after both games.

“We’re better than we were,” Beamer told his team, “but we’re not as good as we’re going to be.”

Reality exists somewhere in the middle. That’s a lesson Beamer’s father, Frank Beamer, tried to instill in his son and all of his players during his storied coaching career at Virginia Tech. You could see shades of that mentality in Shane’s cautious optimism after Week 1.

Yes, the Gamecocks beat Georgia State, but Beamer acknowledged that USC’s rushing defense could’ve been stingier, the line could’ve blocked better, the offense could’ve finished off more drives. Many of those same warts were on display in Saturday’s 44-30 road loss to No. 16 Arkansas, yet Beamer could also point to signs of progress.

Reality is somewhere in the middle, and there’s a sense that these Gamecocks haven’t yet figured out who the real South Carolina is.

There’s a new quarterback in transfer Spencer Rattler, new weapons in the receiving room and a bevy of injuries on the defensive side — a list that grew longer during Saturday’s game. The Gamecocks are still tinkering, trying to find the right formula in all three phases.

For every flash of dominance, there’s been a head-scratching gaffe. Early in Saturday’s second half, USC made a key defensive stop and scored on the offensive end to shrink Arkansas lead to 21-16. At one point, they had possession of the ball with a chance to take a lead. Then running back MarShawn Lloyd fumbled and Rattler threw an interception in the fourth quarter to give control of the game right back to the Razorbacks.

“As a group, players, coaches, we’ve just got to prepare better and do better as a whole,” Rattler said after the game. “The overall performance was way better than last week. We still got a ways to go. And we will. But that’s a good team. That’s a top 20, top 15 team, and we just went head-to-head with them.”

The Gamecocks might’ve gone head-to-head against the country’s No. 16 team, but there are no moral victories in a stacked SEC conference. And the competition will only get tougher next week, when reigning national champion Georgia Bulldogs come to Columbia.

The Gamecocks will have a lot of cleaning up to do to have a chance against a UGA team that throttled USC last year 40-13 in Athens.

Clearly, USC’s rushing defense needs tightening up, after allowing the Razorbacks to run for 295 yards one week after Georgia State rushed for 200. Injuries to veterans R.J. Roderick, David Spaulding, Jordan Strachan and Mo Kaba could make things even more difficult for defensive coordinator Clayton White moving forward. Early in Saturday’s game, Beamer noticed USC’s defense was slow to line up against Arkansas’ up-tempo offense — mistakes that could prove costly next week against Georgia.

Though Rattler threw for 371 yards, accuracy eluded him at times (23-for-38 passing), and a large chunk of his production came with Arkansas in the lead late in the game. On three occasions, Rattler had receiver Ahmarean Brown open on deep shots near the end zone, and he overthrew him each time.

To his credit, Rattler has had little help from his running game and offensive line. Through two games, USC has rushed for just 119 yards on 61 attempts — an average of 1.95 yards per carry. Even still, Beamer said he’s seen growth in his offense.

“I think we’ve made progress,” Beamer said. “I know the rushing yardage wasn’t what it was, and I’m sure some people say, ‘Well, those passing yards were in garbage time.’ I disagree. I mean, that was a ballgame. ... They were hitting us and bringing pressure at the end of the game, and we were making plays, so it wasn’t like we’re getting beat by four touchdowns and they’re just letting us complete passes.

“We made some plays in the passing game throughout. We showed that we can do that. But now we’ve also got to be able to run the football, as well.”

If there’s reason for optimism, it came late in the game with the way Gamecocks battled to put points on the board. Rattler and the Gamecocks showed flashes of rhythm and chemistry in the second half, particularly with wide receiver Antwane Wells, who caught eight passes for a game-high 185 yards.

Wells said the Gamecocks took the field in that fourth quarter with a hunger and a passion to redeem themselves — to show who the Gamecocks really are. We haven’t seen it for 60 minutes yet, and we still might not see it against the powerhouse Bulldogs, which pulverized Oregon in Week 1.

But USC will continue to tinker, and the Gamecocks remain optimistic the pieces will eventually come together.

“We’re nowhere near the ceiling,” Lloyd said Saturday. “There’s plays that we could have made that we should have made that we didn’t make. So I feel like when we start being able to make those plays, I feel like we’re gonna be at the top of the mountain. I’m confident in this team. I’m still with this team.

“And I feel like with all the mess-ups we did today, we still showed that we’re an explosive offense. We just gotta fix up little things. We’re behind our coaches and we’re ready to go, and we’re on to the next.”