In all the craziness that has happened since Sunday, there is indeed a college football game getting played at Williams-Brice this Saturday.

The news out of South Carolina’s football program has been a whirlwind of a 96 hours since Sunday but at the end of the week the Gamecocks line up and kick off against Missouri at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night.

It might be a depleted Missouri team, but Mike Bobo thinks this Tiger team presents a few challenges.

“They do a lot of movement inside with some line game, very similar to Texas A&M, which gave us some problems up front in blocking some of that movement. They present a really, really difficult challenge,” Bobo said.

“At linebacker, (Nick) Bolton, is one of the best linebackers we’ve faced all year and one of the best linebackers I’ve seen in a long time. He’s very active, can run, he will strike you. They do a good job of protecting him and keeping linemen off of him.”

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Missouri is middle of the pack in opponent yards per rush allowed (4), which is good for eighth in the conference.

It’s something that could present a challenge for the Gamecocks, whose offensive success is predicated on running the ball.

The Tigers defensively give up 263 yards passing, the fourth-worst mark in the SEC this season.

“On the back end they play man to man. (Ennis) Rakestraw, he was committed to me at Colorado state for a while. He’s got length; he has range. The other corner, (Jarvis Ware), also has length and is very, very handsy. He does a good job,” Bobo said. Their nose guard, Kobe Whiteside, is not the biggest guy but is extremely strong and can push the pocket. It’s a little bit of a matchup problem for our center.”

Offensively is where South Carolina will have issues with the Gamecocks already prone to defensive miscues and now playing with a depleted secondary.

Missouri is top half of the league in passing yards per game and have an offensive mind in Eli Drinkwitz as its head coach and play caller.

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“Eli does a great job of spreading you out but does a good job giving you some two-back principles. They major heavily in the stretch game and like to get on the edge of your defense and stretch you out. They run enough counter. It’s not the traditional counter where they pull the guard and the tight end, which is what you see nowadays, but it’s the old school counter which is more traditional counter with the guard and tackle counter,” Bobo said.

“They do a good job of that and they have enough quarterback run to keep you honest. They have issues on both sides of the ball with COVID but they have skill step up and make plays. (Jalen Knox) is one of the fastest guys I’ve seen on tape. The quarterback is accurate. It’s a big challenge for us.”

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