There’s really no sugarcoating it.

The South Carolina Gamecocks are in a funk.

They limped into their final bye week and now must face a confident Florida Gators squad at The Swamp. Head coach Steve Spurrier is optimistic — despite the recent string of demoralizing losses — that his team can get things back on track down in Gainesville.

“It was a little down but our guys are pretty resilient,” Spurrier said during his Sunday teleconference. “[Tennessee] was the third kind of game that for whatever reason, we weren’t able to hold on. I think we’ll bounce back. We didn’t beat [our players] up too much [in practice].

In the last five games, South Carolina is a stunning 1-4 with the lone win coming against Furman, an FCS school. All four losses have been within seven points or less and in each of the games, South Carolina was either tied or had a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter.

The last defeat may have been the worst of the bunch, however. Tennessee, who had yet to win a conference game, exploded for 14 points in the final two minutes of the game to force overtime before the Gamecocks ultimately collapsed and lost in the first OT period.

Often times, a bye week during an especially rocky time can help teams and coaches clear their minds, put the struggles behind them and refocus on the upcoming opponent.

For Spurrier, he would prefer to have beaten somebody, but he knows his team has been very close to pulling out some victories and some improvements late in the game may be all his team needs right now.

“Some games are harder than others to get over,” Spurrier explained. One play here or there. One decision a person could have made, so forth. But we’ve have three very similar like this. Have to shake it off, bounce back and get the guys ready to play … hopefully we can correct these errors late in the game.”

A bounce back kind of game is something that’s much needed from the Gamecocks. With only three games left and a 4-5 record, time is quickly running out for South Carolina to salvage any sort of optimism and possibly even bowl eligibility by the end of this season.

“It will be a challenge for us going down to The Swamp. We’ll get ready to gear up and give them our best shot as we go down to play against the Gators,” Spurrier promised.

“Had a good, long weekend and we’ll try to finish as strong as possibly can the last three.”