South Carolina will have to clean up the mistakes to have a chance against Alabama

South Carolina was facing one of the most penalized teams in the SEC when they faced Ole Miss in Week 6. The Gamecocks are a team that also commits a lot of penalties as well, but South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer said that minimizing penalties was a point of emphasis in the week leading up to the game.

Instead of playing disciplined football, especially at home with the crowd on its side, South Carolina went out and committed eight penalties, four of them being offsides penalties on third down plays that gave the Rebels a new set of downs. The Gamecocks also had an unsportsmanlike penalty against Dylan Stewart when he put a hit on Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart and then pretended to shoot him with a shotgun.

That unsportsmanlike penalty gave the Rebels a first down when the Gamecocks had finally gotten a stop on third down. That makes four penalties that gave Ole Miss first downs when the Gamecocks either got a stop or had a third-down opportunity to get a stop.

Ultimately, the offense was never able to get going against Ole Miss, and that was a prime reason the Gamecocks were unable to get the win. However, when penalties begin to pile up, it just takes the wind out of a team and takes them out of the game.

After losing to Vanderbilt this past week, Alabama is probably going to have one of their toughest weeks of practice in a long time. That means that they are probably going to come into their game against South Carolina and play some very disciplined football.

South Carolina is going to need to do that as well. The Gamecocks can not afford to give the Crimson Tide any free downs or help them in any way. The pre-snap penalties could hurt the Gamecocks the worst, especially with the game being in Tuscaloosa. That fanbase is going to be there and be loud, trying to help their team look better after the embarrassing loss.