South Carolina’s SEC losing streak continues to grow. 

The Gamecocks dropped their seventh straight SEC contest and have now lost 11 of their last 13 games against power conference opponents after losing to Alabama last weekend, 49-18. 

Many of the same problems that plagued the Gamecocks the week before hurt the team again as they failed to finish drives, turned the ball over and got burned on the defensive side. 

“When you have the inconsistencies that we have, you get your ass embarrassed in this league, and that's what happened,” head coach Shane Beamer said after the game. “I'm the head coach. It's on me and I've got to get us playing more consistent football for four quarters and not as up and down as we are right now."

Four games into the season and a 2-2 record, the Gamecocks have little time to get on track. South Carolina is back home this weekend for a game against No. 24 Kentucky, and then has another pair of ranked matchups after that versus Florida and Tennessee. 

But before looking ahead, let’s look back at the Alabama game and go over the top three takeaways from the loss. 

South Carolina’s defense has to prevent explosive plays

For the second week in a row, the Gamecocks’ defense allowed the opposing quarterback to carve them up. 

Against Mississippi State, it was young up-and-comer Kamario Taylor. This time, it was Alabama’s sophomore Keelon Russell.

He went 21-of-27 for 365 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Russell faced little pressure from South Carolina’s defensive front and had no problem finding gaps in the secondary. 

“Coming into this game, we said we needed to do two things to win the football game, run the ball and affect the quarterback,” Beamer said. “We clearly did not affect the quarterback enough."

It’s bad enough the Gamecocks are giving up so many yards and touchdowns, but it’s how they’re doing it that’s even more concerning. 

Mississippi State and Alabama didn’t have to rely on dump-offs and checkdowns to get their passing game going. They had plenty of opportunities downfield over the middle and deep downfield. 

South Carolina’s defense just can’t get off the field. Alabama converted 50% of its third-down chances to the Gamecocks’ 21%. Mississippi converted 33% of its third downs, but went 3/3 on fourth-down attempts. 

In a conference like the SEC where you’re guaranteed to see a competent quarterback every week, South Carolina’s defense has to improve and keep teams from beating them over the top. 

“We’ve got to look at who we have out there. We’ve got to look at what we're calling and continue to put our guys in positions to make plays,” Beamer said. “We've played way too good on defense around here for a long time to give up, whatever it was, 365 yards in the passing game.”

LaNorris Sellers looks shaken 

A third of the way through the season, there is a lot of concern surrounding starting quarterback LaNorris Sellers. 

Following his breakout 2024 campaign, the former Heisman hopeful has looked shaken at times during the 2025 and 2026 seasons. Last season’s mistakes were chalked up to bad playcalling, shaky line play and a lack of weapons. 

Those excuses won’t fly this season. 

The biggest problem so far hasn’t been bad calls, sacks or dropped balls. It’s been awful throws and turnovers. 

Against Mississippi State, he threw two bad picks that had no chance but to end up in the hands of the defense. 

In the Alabama game, he threw a costly pick-six near the end of the second half that helped the Crimson Tide run away with the game. 

Eventually, Sellers was pulled and backup Cutter Woods was given some burn. 

Despite his struggles, Beamer is sticking with Sellers. 

“Like anybody, there's some plays that he'd like to have back, but he gave us a chance with his arm and his legs, and we got to continue to help him as coaches,” Beamer said.

The preseason projected future NFL draft pick will need to step his game up if he wants to live up to his expectations, and if he can’t, the Gamecocks won’t meet theirs. 

This could all get a lot uglier

While morale is low right now, there is the potential for things to get a lot worse. 

The Gamecocks are 2-2 overall right now, but 0-2 in SEC play. The team still has a tough schedule coming up, with conference games against Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Arkansas and Georgia left on the schedule. They’ll also end the year with their annual rivalry game against Clemson. 

After the Mississippi State loss, Beamer stressed that how the team responded will define their season. Well, against Alabama, the team responded poorly. 

The team was sluggish, undisciplined and at times key players lost their temper. 

Dylan Stewart, another of the team’s star players and a projected first-round draft pick, was caught on camera punching an opposing player and arguing with coaches. 

He has since been suspended from the team indefinitely. 

With everything seemingly falling apart, Beamer is pushing the same message. The team will respond and right the ship before it sinks. 

“Zero doubt about how we will respond,” he said. “We got the right character of people in that locker room. What we got to get fixed is not just responding with the mindset, but responding with much more consistent play than what we're showing right now.”