South Carolina’s struggles from early this season continued in its game against Missouri as the Gamecocks lost 29-20 on the road. 

The team dropped to 2-2 this season and 0-2 in conference play. South Carolina has been outplayed in all three phases of football in its first two conference games and will have to adjust quickly to right the ship. 

“We have to look at everything schematically, personnel, everything that we're doing. Unfortunately, we have been here before,” head coach Shane Beamer said after the game. “We need to get better this week, and that's all you can do. Sit here and look at where you can be better at, and continue to attack that and work.” 

South Carolina’s schedule will not get any easier from here. The team has six conference games left. Five are against top-20 teams. Three of those teams are in the top-10.

“We are a third of the way through. We have been a team that has always gotten better as the season goes and confident that this year will be no different,” Beamer said. “Nobody thought that we would be sitting here at 2-2. We know the schedule doesn't get any easier.” 

Here are three takeaways from the Gamecocks' game against Missouri. 

South Carolina’s lack of a run game will cost them

The Gamecocks’ run game has been disappointing this season. Against Missouri, it was abysmal. 

South Carolina finished the game with -9 rushing yards. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers had 10 carries for -28 yards. He was sacked five times. 

Lead running back Rahsul Faison took six carries for five yards. Oscar Adaway took three carries for seven yards. Matt Fuller took two handoffs for seven yards, and Brian Rowe Jr. got one for no yardage. 

“Just told them in the locker room, when you get outrushed 285 to -9, you are not going to win,” Beamer said. “When you are in the red zone like we were and went backwards, it's going to be hard to win. When you have, once again, 14 penalties, going to be hard to win. When you have the opportunity to make plays and don't get it done, it's going to be hard to win.”

The team’s lack of a rushing attack will make its offense one-dimensional and predictable. That is not sustainable in the SEC.

LaNorris Sellers had a solid game passing, going 18-for-28 with 302 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. However, the Gamecocks became easier to stop as the game went on, with no run game to lean on. 

Outside of the team’s run struggles, the penalties also hurt the team and made the offense one-dimensional. South Carolina was penalized 14 times for 98 yards in the Missouri loss. Almost half of those were pre-snap. 

"It's hard to say it's one bad night when we've had the number of pre-snap penalties that we've had,” Beamer said. “The definition of insanity is to continue the same thing over and over again. When you have 14 penalties on the road, something has to change, starting with me."

The team needs to turn it around now to stay competitive

Entering the season, the Gamecocks faced high expectations. 

South Carolina was a favorite sleeper choice to make the playoffs this season. The team was projected to finish high in the SEC standings. LaNorris Sellers was a favorite to contend for the Heisman. 

Four games into the season, all of those are close to slipping away. 

A 0-2 hole in the SEC is hard to recover from. It’s even harder to recover from when you haven’t even played the toughest of the competition yet. 

South Carolina still has games against the No. 4, 7, 9, 13 and 17 ranked teams in the country. Three of those games will be on the road. 

The Gamecocks have the talent to win some and compete in all of those games. It will take rapid development on both sides of the ball to get there. 

“If we can continue to get better and clean a lot of this stuff up, then we have a chance to be the team that we thought we were going to be,” Beamer said. 

Defense has to adjust to SEC physicality

Aside from Vicari Swain’s insane punt returns, the defense was the brightest spot from South Carolina’s first two wins. So far in SEC play, the unit has failed to show that same flash. 

In the past two games, South Carolina has had trouble tackling the opposing team’s players. Missouri’s running backs blew over Gamecock defenders on the defensive line and secondary en route to 285 ground yards. 

The team had similar problems against Vanderbilt, which led to explosive plays. 

“Just really, really disappointing. We've said it all week, you have to get 11 hats to the ball on this guy and tackle him,” Beamer said. “Give them credit, when you run for 285, you run for 285. But a lot of those were because of missed tackles, losing leverage, or whatever it might be. All 11 have to get there."

Tackling hasn’t been the only problem. The defensive line has struggled to get pressure on quarterbacks, recording one sack against Missouri and one against Vanderbilt. 

“When you are on the road in the SEC, you've got to make plays. Offense, defense and special teams,”  Beamer said. “We did not make enough plays tonight."