After effectively being the punching bag for online takes all season, the South Carolina offensive line stepped up big tonight in the bowl clinching win over Auburn.

The Gamecocks were able to establish the run game and Jason Brown wasn't forced to attempt to escape the pocket, allowing him to put together an impressive performance with his arm.

Brown went 10-15 for 157 yards and three touchdown passes and it helped that the offensive line gave him time to get established in the pocket, something that didn't happen last week against Missouri.

Auburn's defense only tallied one quarterback hurry and sacked Brown four times throughout the game. Four sacks isn't pretty but they only accounted for 16 yards against the team.

"I think our offensive line did a tremendous job today," Brown said. "The only time that there were pressures was when I would step up too far or make it hard on myself, they played a tremendous game."

One of Brown's three touchdown's was thrown to offensive lineman turned fullback Trai Jones.

While Jones wasn't on the field with the core offensive line group, he said the line's group showed how much heart that they play with on a daily basis.

"They didn't care about what happened," Jones said. "They just had to do their job and they just came out good."

Shane Beamer was impressed with how the offensive line responded to the Auburn defense, which was fifth in the SEC for rush defense coming into the game.

"A lot of teams have had a hard time scoring points against those guys," Beamer said. "They have a fantastic front seven like Auburn always does and that's what excites me. That's a big boy SEC defense we just played and our offensive line went toe to toe with them."

Thanks in part to the offensive line the running backs were able to bounce back from their worst performance of the season with 149 yards this week.

After the game Beamer said that they were able to get into a groove, effectively running "the same two running plays" for the entire game.

"It was duo and it was the counter," Beamer said. "We ran it over, over, over, over, over, over and over again and it was pretty fun to watch."

ZaQuandre White led the team in rushing yards for the second straight week, finishing with 99 yards and averaging 6.2 yards a carry.

The offense as a whole had 306 total yards, a performance that Beamer says shows that this South Carolina team can hang with any team in the country if they can sustain it.

"I think it shows, when we execute we go up against anybody," Beamer said. "We've gotta do a great job of getting ready to do it again and not take two steps forward and take a step back next week. We've got to continue to get better."

The offensive line will have to continue to play well next week when rival Clemson comes to town.

The Tigers have the third best rushing defense and the fourth best passing defense in the ACC and are coming off a big win over ranked Wake Forest.

----

• Not a subscriber? Learn more about Gamecock Central here!

• Watch our live show and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

• Sign up for Gamecock Central's FREE news alerts and daily newsletter.

• Subscribe to our podcast on whatever podcast platform you prefer!

• Follow us on Twitter: @GamecockCentral, @GCChrisClark, @WesMitchellGC, @CollynTaylor and @Mike_Uva.

• Follow Gamecock Central on Instagram @GamecockCentral.