Beamer doesn’t hold back with second bye week preparation needing to be better

After the way South Carolina played following its first bye week, Shane Beamer knows things need to be better this time around.

“We obviously played like hot garbage against coming off the last off week,” Beamer said. “Coaches, players, we did not perform well after an off week when we got ready to play Ole Miss.”

The Gamecocks got off to a 3-1 start through the first four weeks of the season then entered a bye week with two weeks to prepare for an Ole Miss team that had just lost to Kentucky. Even with an extra week of prep, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that was the case.

South Carolina was outplayed from start to finish in a 27-3 loss to the Rebels back on Oct. 5. Between multiple questionable coaching decisions and the offense not being able to reach the end zone, the Gamecocks didn’t stand much of a chance. And their performance caught much criticism for the simple fact they came off a bye week.

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Now, after a 35-9 win over Oklahoma on Saturday, the team will head into a rare second off week of the season. Every FBS team has two bye weeks this year since the NCAA prohibits teams from playing their first game of the season prior to the Thursday before Labor Day.

And with an extra opportunity to rest and recover, Beamer plans to ensure his team doesn’t have a similar performance like they did against Ole Miss. It starts with assessing what they’re doing as a team during the week.

“I think if anything it’s looking at where you are as a team health wise. We’re seven games in and we’re getting ready to play five straight games in the month of November,” the fourth-year head coach said. “And for a lot of the freshmen on our team, if they didn’t have a high school team that went deep in the playoffs, I mean, their season was over by the time they got to November, for a lot of them. So it’s a long season, so you need to be cognizant of that, making sure you take care of their bodies.”

Following the bye week, four of South Carolina’s next five games will come against ranked teams in this week’s AP Poll. The only non-ranked foe it faces will be Wofford on Nov. 23. Otherwise, it’s going to have three straight weeks of SEC games. The Gamecocks will then travel to Clemson to close out the year.

The other part of Beamer’s approach to this week is figuring out where the team needs to improve. He didn’t dive into specifics but it’s something he’s been speaking with coordinators Dowell Loggains and Clayton White about since last week.

“The overall structure of the week, as far as how we practice is going to be very similar,” Beamer said. “But it’s maybe what do we need more of? What do we need less of? Where are we struggling right now? Is it certain situational things that we need more work at? Whatever it might be. … But two, what do we need to really work on as a team to continue to get better? And that’s where the focus starts and ends, and we build it that way.”

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At the same time, that doesn’t mean the schedule will be exactly how it was the last time. And judging by how the last bye week led to a 24-point loss, it shouldn’t be a carbon copy. Instead, Beamer said there will be some tweaks made.

The one tweak he did mention was that the players having Sunday off. Normally, they’d have off on Monday. For this week, the days were switched.

“I mean, the last off week, we were coming off a win over Akron, and we came in and we met and we lifted and had a normal Sunday. (This Sunday), we didn’t do anything,” Beamer said. “The players, they talked me into giving them the day off.”

South Carolina (4-3, 2-3 SEC) will return to action in less than two weeks when it hosts No. 14 Texas A&M (6-1, 4-0 SEC) on Saturday, Nov. 2. The game will either be at 7:30 or 7:45 p.m. on ABC, ESPN or SEC Network.

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