First things first: as of this writing we still don’t need the status of LaNorris Sellers. And frankly, if I were Shane Beamer, I wouldn’t be sharing the news on Sellers’ availability until the last possible second. So don’t expect that question to be answered anytime soon. Even South Carolina’s backup quarterback went out on Tuesday and said everything was “business as usual.” Ok. Cool.
Second, after a weird online discussion of availability, it looks like the Gamecocks’ star defensive end Dylan
Stewart will be available to play the entire game. The discourse around that aspect was odd since — I thought was fairly apparent to me — he was ejected for fighting against Vanderbilt, not targeting, and therefore the ejection only counts for the game in which it occurs. But smarter industry people than me were confused about it so maybe this is a case where my ignorance was a blessing.
With all of those caveats out of the way…hello, South Carolina! You have something that belongs to us. It’s a cup about yay big, and it’s been in our possession since 2020. You have it. We’d like it back.
Here’s the preview I did of the Gamecocks this past June. In it I cited the fact that a few key transfers on the line and one in the running back stable paired with the breakout of a transcendent young quarterback to elevate the Gamecocks from 5 wins to 9 wins in a single year. But I also pointed out that most of their lost production was due to graduation and most of their portal losses were backups, leaving a noticeable void in the depth chart. And while I trust Eli Drinkwitz and his staff with portal evals given five years of data, I’m also hesitant to trust Beamer & friends’ evals given their track record outside of the ‘24 portal class. With a new OC and some new faces filling in, Sellers has been struggling to keep the Gamecock offense at the elevated levels it enjoyed last year, and now he’s injured and his backup, quarterback-turned-receiver-turned-back-to-quarterback Luke Doty, is a much less effective producer than Sellers.
With all of that preamble out of the way, let’s take a look at this week’s matchup:
When Missouri Has the Ball
I swear I’m not trying to be Negative Nate on purpose; I’m just trying to keep a level head about an offense that is lightyears better than I thought it would be, has scored more points in the first three games than any previous Drinkwitz team, and currently ranks 17th in the country. And to that I’ll say the age-old college football-ism: they ain’t played nobody.
Central Arkansas is FCS. kansas, while a solid Top 25 team, fielded the 41st-ranked defense at the time which now sits at 59th. Louisiana’s defense: 87th before Missouri, 95th after.
The point is that this will be the first game this season that the transfer-heavy Missouri offense will be going against a real, big-boy SEC defense, and I have no idea how they’ll do.
The Gamecocks enter this contest with the 26th-best defense in SP+, a unit that held Diego Pavia and the 31st-best offense in the country to four touchdowns over 10 possessions. It’s a talented group with a lot of havoc-oriented play makers that will be cranked to 11 to compensate for either a backup quarterback or an injured one.
Ahmad Hardy said it out loud on Saturday and I’m glad he did: he’s still getting used to playing at this level, and arguably still hasn’t had the acclimation needed to be fully prepared. All disrespect intended to the Jayhawks (and none towards UCA or ULL) but Missouri’s three defensive opponents look and play nothing like what they’ll see this week. Hardy acknowledged it’ll be different, and I think every guy who transferred in should feel the same way. And you should, too!
But, as always, there are better ways to beat your opponent than just “doing your thing.” Let’s take a look:
Pass to Win (??????)
I know. I KNOW. You’re sitting there going “Nate, we just watched one of the great single game rushing performances in Mizzou history, on top of two other games of rushing dominance, and now you want to go full hippie-communist on us and tell them to THROW the ball? I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMERICA.”
Or something like that.
But hear me out: you don’t want to run on South Carolina. Yes, they’re allowing a 39% success rate on the ground which ranks 74th in the nation. But they’re holding opponents to 3.6 yards per rush (not counting sacks); that’s tough. They’re only allowing 6.1 yards per successful rush which is 8th in the nation. When opponents choose to run on the Gamecocks their expected points added for the decision is MINUS 0.3 points per attempt, which is the 12th best in the country. They’ll give you a little but rarely give you a lot and offenses are fighting a losing battle when they run.
Now, is Virginia Tech, South Carolina State, or Vanderbilt as good of a rushing team as Missouri? Of course not. Vanderbilt is close with the 25th-best rushing attack but Missouri is 11th in the nation. Still, you’re not going to see Missouri run it against any SEC defense the way they’ve done it the first three games of the year so the sleepy passing game from last week will need to wake up and get after it this week. Also, South Carolina’s pass defense? Ranked 82nd in SP+. Let’s shoot for a 43% passing success rate.
Maintain Possession
Lost among the discussion of how good Beau Pribula, Ahmad Hardy and Kevin Coleman have been is Missouri’s efficiency on 3rd downs. Some of that is forced because the lack of a Mevis-level kicker, but still, Missouri was not very good at 3rd-downs last year and very much is this year. How good? Try 62.2% conversion rate good. 7th in the nation good. It’s been one of the reasons why Missouri’s defense has been on the field so little this year: a ground-and-pound offense that drains the clock and strings together 10-12 play combos that take forever.
That will have to be the case here as well, not only because it’s one of the secrets that has powered this dominant run to start the season but also is a weakness for the Gamecock D. How bad is it? Well, they’re allowing an 43.5% 3rd-down conversion rate so far, which ranks 103rd in the nation.
Let’s target the middle ground here. I want to see a 52% 3rd-down conversion rate.
Finish your dang drives
This is a true statement for any game, but certainly for any SEC game. South Carolina’s defense is stingy with the points, giving up an average of 3.57 points to any offense that crosses the 40-yard line. Missouri’s offense is averaging 5.96 points per scoring opportunity. I’ll settle for 9 scoring opportunities created and 4.5 points per opportunity.
When South Carolina Has The Ball
Even when LaNorris Sellers was playing, this Gamecock offense has been a shell of its former self— 106th in rushing the ball, 90th in passing, 71st overall… Sellers can’t do it all and the replacement pieces have failed to live up to last year’s unit. And now they have injury concerns about their best player.
Whether Sellers plays or not there is a specific path here for Missouri’s rarely tested defense to keep this thing out of reach.
Bottle Up Those Explosives
South Carolina is an equal opportunity offender when it comes to being bad at offense. Their rushing success rates and passing success rates are both at 39%. They rank 107th in standard downs success rate and 109th in passing downs success rate. They’re 120th in converting 3rd-downs, 131st in points per scoring opportunity…just a whole lot of bad. The one thing they ARE good at, though (good being a relative term)? Explosive plays. Ugh. Yup. The one thing that the Missouri defense has been consistently susceptible to. So…yeah, good luck, don’t let them rip off 9 or 10 big ones this game. In fact, let’s keep it to under 8, please.
Turn Them Over
The other notable aspect of South Carolina’s offense: the turnovers. With the way that the Gamecocks execute on offense you would expect, on average, for them to generate 3.4 turnovers so far this year. That’s bad. 82nd in the nation bad. What’s worse? Their actual turnover number exceeds that gloomy projection as they’ve given away the ball four times in three games so far. Missouri needs to keep up that dismal record. Let’s go with a +1 in the turnover margin.
Conclusion
If I may, I’m just going to quote myself from this year’s preview that I linked up top. Ahem:
Look…I’m probably being a hater right now but I’m going to cite the full Beamer history – rather than just one season – as to how I view this 2025 South Carolina team.
History shows a coach who can catch media attention and recruit well but fails to deploy his talent in a manner that wins games. Scroll back up to that SP+ chart at the beginning: the caliber of his teams sea-saws from 14 or 16 at its highs to 4 at its lows the year following the success, and even then, last year was the first time he had fewer than 5 losses in a season. It’s absolutely true that he was able to steer out of the skid last year and surprise the nation with nine wins thanks to some impact additions. But history has shown that those additions were an outlier to what he usually does, and given his overall lackluster record and talent evaluation, I’m going to believe that is what he usually does rather than what we saw in ‘24.
I might be wrong. But history says I’m not. And, so far, South Carolina has underdelivered on expectations, gotten blown out at home by Vanderbilt, and injured their quarterback in the process. Any SEC team can beat any other SEC team on any given Saturday but this is a good matchup for Mizzou. Let’s get that Cup back.
