Gamecocks break down Missouri

For as much as people know about South Carolina through three games—which is not much—there may be less known about the Missouri team they’ll face Saturday.

The Tigers are 2-1 and haven’t played a juggernaut yet through three games. They opened the season with a loss at Wyoming, then followed it up by trouncing West Virginia and Southeast Missouri the last two weeks.

Now, the Gamecocks have spent the week trying to piece together what the Tigers will do this week with guys saying it’s a tough test on the road this weekend.

“They’re a great team,” Jay Urich said. “They’re aggressive and they get after the quarterback. They switch up coverages. They’re an overall solid team that we’re going to have to be ready to play our best game against.”

Also see: How South Carolina could get back to the College World Series

The biggest piece of the Missouri offense is a familiar face to South Carolina in Kelly Bryant, who transferred out of Clemson last season and is the Tigers’ starting quarterback this season.

He’s a little different than the run-heavy guy fans grew accustom to at Clemson, passing more than he did in his career there. He’s thrown four times as much (93 attempt) than he’s run (24 attempts) this season.

Through three games this year he’s completing 67.7 percent of his passes for 798 yards and six touchdowns with just two interceptions.

"There's some similarities offensively with what everybody does when you're talking 11-personnel or 12 personnel, run game, throwing game wise, talking schematically that carries over between teams. He's a winner,” Will Muschamp said. “That's the one thing that jumps out at you. He throws the ball extremely well. He throws the vertical ball well. He evades and moves to throw the ball more than run with the ball. I don't know that facing him before at another school means an awful lot other than I've got tremendous respect for him."

Also see: Defensive tackle target breaks down recent visit

As of Tuesday, the Gamecocks haven’t watched much film on him from his time at Clemson, focusing solely on the three games he’s played in offensive coordinator Derek Dooley’s system.

Through film review, they’ve noticed he’s usually the focal point of what the Tigers do along with trying to catch defenses out of position with their tempo

“Well, Kelly Bryant stands out,” Jaycee Horn said “They have a pretty good tight end also and they switch up the tempos. It’s just another week of reading your keys, lining up fast and playing football.”

That tight end is Albert Okwuegbunam, who’s caught seven passes for 138 yards and three touchdowns. The Tigers are led in receiving by Jalen Knox, who has 192 yards receiving and five other guys have at least 70 yards receiving so far this year.

Larry Roundtree is a back Muschamp said the team has a lot of respect for, rushing for 287 yards and four touchdowns while averaging 5.7 yards per carry.

“(Larry) Rountree and (Tyler) Badie can both get the ball on the edges. They're really one-cut runners,” Muschamp said. “They get the ball north and south extremely well. We played against them last year, so we've got a pretty good idea the kind of backs that they are. We've got a lot of respect for them."

Also see: Rico Powers a 'force to be reckoned with'

Defensively, the Tigers are pretty stout statistically, coming into this weekend atop the SEC in pass defense and allowing 95.7 yards per game.

“They probably play a little more man coverage percentage-wise looking at that,” Muschamp said. “They’ve always been a good cover two team since Barry’s been there. They’ve been good in zone coverage and giving you some different looks and some different adjustments,” “I think they do a good job of those things. It’s probably a little more man coverage than we’ve seen in years past.”

Muschamp said the Tigers start defensively up front with their defensive line. They have 26 tackles for loss this season, including six sacks.

“They’re very physical,” Nick Muse said. “They love to get up the field so hopefully we catch them at their weakness. When they love to get up the field we can cut back behind them. But they’re very physical, downhill players; very strong.”