In a season full of offensive growing pains, Saturday against Tennessee was the latest one.

After showing signs of life last week, the South Carolina offense struggled—especially early—in a 45-20 loss to Tennessee Saturday.

Shane Beamer, talking postgame about offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield's play calling, said it was good before doubling down on believing in Satterfield's abilities.

"What do you want me to say? It’s been terrible? Are there plays Marcus would like to have back? Yeah. Every single coach and player in that locker room would like to have plays back. Today’s no question," Beamer said. "If we could go back, and hindsight being 20-20, there’s a lot of plays we’d like to have back. There are a lot of calls we’d like to have back."

On paper, the Gamecocks put together some decent numbers: Luke Doty threw for 217 passing yards and five different rushers compiled 153 rushing yards, the most against a FBS school this season.

"Really we just have to keep on working on it," Kevin Harris said. "We have four or five great backs in the room."

In the first half South Carolina totaled 181 yards of offense, split between 83 rushing yards and 98 passing yards. The Gamecocks were only able to average 4.8 yards per play in the first half. They'd end the shutout in the second quarter with a Harris touchdown run, the first rushing score since week one.

As expected, Tennessee went up-tempo on offense and was able to score on six of their seven first half drives. In comparison, South Carolina only scored on one of their seven first half drives. The Gamecocks punted four times and had two turnovers on the other six drives of the first half.

The offense turned the ball over twice in the first half on back to back drives. Once when defensive lineman Jordan Burch threw an interception and another when Doty fumbled the snap and lost the ball.

Doty's fumble was one of his two on the day, but the only one that South Carolina lost.

"Offensively, did a lot of good things, just shot ourselves in the foot at times again," Beamer said.

Harris was the highlight of a frustratingly inconsistent day offensive day, rushing for a season-high 61 yards and getting his first two touchdowns this season.

"It felt pretty good to get in the end zone," Harris said post game. "Last time I got in the end zone was what, last season, it's been what six games so it felt good."

The second half was generally more of the same for the offense but there was some improvement.

South Carolina gained eight more yards in the second half than the first, as well as improved their yards per play by 0.3 yards to 5.1 yards per play. The 189 second half yards put the offense at 370 total in the game.

South Carolina was 3-for-8 on third downs in the second half and 7-for-16 in the game as a whole.

"We had 75 plays for close to 400 yards," Beamer said. "We're not as good on third down and didn’t always score touchdowns in the red zone and had two fumbled snaps between the quarterback and center."

On five second half drives the Gamecocks were able to score twice but punted or turned the ball over on downs for the other three drives.

Punter Kai Kroeger threw the longest pass of the day in the third quarter after a pass was completed on a fake punt to Payton Mangrum for a 44 yard touchdown.

"It was a great play call by Coach Beamer and Coach Lembo, we had talked about it that drive leading up," Kroeger said. "Their corners were letting our gunners go after about ten or so yards."

South Carolina wasn't able to score again until the fourth quarter after a 15-play, 80-yard drive was capped off by Harris' second touchdown of the game. The drive was South Carolina's longest of the day in terms of plays and yards.

The Gamecock offense seems to still be in search of its identity and it'll need to find one soon.

"Whatever we are offensively right now, it’s not good enough," Beamer said. "We have to be better. We have to continue to coach and play better. Special teams, defense. We all had a hand in things today."

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