Entering the season with question marks at a few positions, the South Carolina defense has answered nearly every challenge thrown at it with one big piece the Gamecocks are still working out the kinks of.
After starting the year dominating their opponents’ run games the Gamecocks have struggled stopping the run over the last three weeks with improving it a priority defensively moving forward.
“I think it was more just knocking people back at the point of attack and being in position,” Shane Beamer said. “At the point of attack, control the line of scrimmage and when you make contact with the running back or receiver, make sure we’re getting there violently and knocking them back. We need to do a better job of that.”
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The run defense was incredibly stingy through the first two weeks, allowing just 197 yards on 53 carries adjusting for sack yardage (3.7 yards per carry).
Since then, as competition’s stiffened, they’ve struggled to consistently stop the run and give up chunk plays.
Again adjusting for sack yardage, the Gamecock defense is allowing 5.6 yards per carry (103 attempts, 579 yards) with three teams—Georgia, Kentucky and Troy—having 13 runs of at least 12 yards with four going for at least 20 yards.
They’ve allowed three explosive runs for touchdowns, one per game the last three weeks, but Beamer thinks the run defense will improve as players continue to execute a little bit better.
“If people were just lining up and mauling us, I’d be worried,” he said. “I don’t see that. I think it’s gap control and dominating your space.”
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Troy, which came into Saturday’s game averaging 75.3 rushing yards per game and 2.6 yards per rush ran for 145 yards and 4.7 yards per carry (5.4 yards per carry without sack yards).
The good news for the Gamecocks is they held 38 percent of Troy’s runs to under two yards, but need to obviously be better at avoiding those chunk runs they’ve allowed the last three weeks.
“Yesterday it was more just either misfitting a gap. The early touchdown run they had early on was a guy a little slow rocking back to his gap and not being where he’s supposed to be,” Beamer said.
“The one after (Zacch) Pickens’s penalty, they hit a 10 or 12 yard run after that and it was more the safety has to be there to support the play a little bit quicker than what he was. The one on the backed up situation, we had a corner lose leverage. We always want to turn that thing back inside and let that ball get outside of us.”
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The next chance for the Gamecocks to improve on their run defense comes Saturday at Tennessee (noon, ESPN2).
The Vols (3-2, 1-1 SEC) rank fourth in the conference averaging 5.3 yards per carry and are third with 41 rushes of at least 10 yards.
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