The No. 21 South Carolina Gamecocks (6-3, 4-3 SEC) will host the No. 23 Missouri Tigers (7-2, 3-2 SEC) at Williams-Brice Stadium for the Gamecocks' last SEC matchup of the season.
Both the Gamecocks and the Tigers are coming off wins from the past weekend. The Gamecocks took down the former No. 24 Vanderbilt Commodores 28-7, and the Tigers beat the Oklahoma Sooners 30-24.
During last year's game against the Tigers, the Gamecocks lost 34-12. Head coach Shane Beamer said that in the past, the Gamecocks have been unable to do the needed things on both ends of the ball, including running the ball.
“They’ve kicked our butts physically...if you go back and look at sack totals, our ability to sack their quarterback and their ability to put pressure on our quarterback, you look at rushing yardage plus our ability to stop the run we’ve been nowhere near good enough,” Beamer said. “It's not just O line, D line, we haven't been good enough on both sides of the ball to do the things we need to do to win the football games.”
The Tigers have won their last 18 out of 22 games since last season, despite injuries the team has faced offensively, Beamer said, and have since gained a national ranking this season with a 7-2 record.
“It may not always be pretty, but they are finding ways to win and there is something to be said for that,” Beamer said.
The Tigers' players have faced injuries, including in the quarterback position, with graduate student Brady Cook's availability status still unclear. Cook suffered a high ankle sprain during the Tigers' win over Auburn and then an injury to the hand/wrist area during the team's loss to Alabama. However, graduate student backup quarterback Drew Pyne threw for 143 yards and 3 touchdowns to help rally the Tigers against the Sooners last weekend.
Even with the potential quarterback change for the Tigers, Beamer said no extra preparations will be made even when the availability report comes out. Both quarterbacks have been known to run, Beamer said, and no matter the quarterback, the Gamecocks have to figure out the outside zone scheme.
“They do what they do and its lineup, run outside zone with the running backs and drop back and find ways to get the ball to Burden and Wease and no matter who the quarterback is back there they’re going to do that,” Beamer said. “So, no, it doesn't really change anything for us. We got to figure out how to slow down the outside zone scheme run and figure out a way to keep number 3 and number 1 in check.”
Senior defensive back O’Donnell Fortune said the Gamecocks have been preparing for both Pyne and Cook, despite Cooks availability still unclear as kickoff approaches.
"Both QBs have different play styles, just preparing for both of them in practice all week," Fortune said.
The Tigers arguably have one of the best receiving cores in the conference and have picked up some big transfers offensively this season, Beamer said. Graduate student Theo Wease is the Tigers' highest receiving wide receiver with a total of 552 yards and averages 13.46 per carry. He is followed by junior Luther Burden who has 505 yards this season and averages 11.22 per carry.
The Tigers also picked up senior running back Marcus Carroll and graduate student Nate Noel from the transfer portal, along with senior offensive linemen Marcus Bryant and sophomore offensive linemen Cayden Green.
"When you talk about Luther Burden who will be a top 10 pick in the NFL draft, Theo Wease who took over that game last week against Oklahoma in the fourth quarter... Mookie Cooper and some of those other guys in there it's a really dangerous and explosive offense," Beamer said."(They added) two new running backs...they both compliant each other well. Offensive line is really talented, they were talented last year, and they’ve added a transfer from Oklahoma and a transfer from SMU as well, so they are big and athletic on the offensive line.”
Beamer said the Gamecocks' rushing numbers have gone way up for this season for a variety of reasons including the offensive line having continuity with each other. Redshirt senior offensive lineman Torricelli Simpkins said the offensive line has stuck together and ignored any talk surrounding the team since the beginning of the season.
“We know we’re a good unit up front...and now we got everything clicking together,” Simpkins said. “Keep building our chemistry. We’re going on a rise we’re not...going up and down, steady going on the rise and that's what we’ve been doing all of November.”
Despite the Gamecocks' win streak in SEC conference play, the Tigers will present a challenge for the Gamecocks this weekend as South Carolina has lost its last five games to the Tigers.
“We need to certainly play...a lot better than we have against these guys since I’ve been the head coach,” Beamer said. “Our guys are excited obviously coming off a great win over Vanderbilt...but need to have a great week of practice to play a really good, really well coached and really talented Missouri team.”
What's next?
The No. 21 Gamecocks will take on No. 23 Tigers at Williams-Brice on Nov. 16. Kickoff will be at 4:15 p.m. and will be streamed live on the SEC Network.