Advertisement
football Edit

Three Up, Three Down: Appalachian State

SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL

The Gamecocks suffered another disappointing loss Saturday. Were there any silver linings?

THREE UP

1. Defense

Despite an almost totally ineffective offense, the defense held the Mountaineers to just 202 yards. The Mountaineers really only mounted one drive of any substance. The other scores each were more a product of good field position than offensive execution. And late in the game when the Gamecocks needed to get the ball back to have a chance to win, the defense forced punts on the last four drives, included three three-and-outs.

2. Parker White and Joseph Charlton

The kicking game continues to be about the only consistent thing about South Carolina. Parker White went 3-3 with a career-long 50-yard field goal. Charlton averaged 52.4 yards on five punts, with two downed inside the 20 and three going over 50 yards. That would be a great day for most punters, but it’s an average game for Charlton.

3. Ryan Hilinski and Bryan Edwards

With all due respect to some great catches in the fourth quarter by Rico Dowdle, there was no offense besides Hilinski and Edwards. What made them impressive was their resiliency. Edwards played the second half with a sprained knee that caused him to miss the entire second quarter. And Hilinski threw for 166 yards in the fourth quarter, converting 3-4 on fourth down and nearly leading a comeback for a team that looked dead by the middle of the third quarter. Now if only they could get some help...

THREE DOWN

1. Playcalling

Let’s start by acknowledging the mitigating factor: the offense, specifically the receivers, has been so decimated by injuries that it’s hard to do much on offense.

You can’t just plug in another player and have your full playbook. For one thing, that ignores that there are actually different receiver positions and few players practice at all of them. It’s been easy to spot the challenges South Carolina has had getting lined up properly. You hear the boilerplate argument “they are Division I athletes,” which implies that all athletes are the same and there’s no difference between Joe Burrow and Corbett Glick. “Well they’re on scholarship!” Except that they aren’t. Walk-on Trey Adkins was pressed into duty Saturday as the other options succumbed to one injury or another.

“It’s a little bit unfair out there,” Muschamp said. “It’s hard to rely on things in the passing game. We’re just so inconsistent with personnel.”

But, having said all that, there was still a complete lack of imagination in the play-calling. Through three quarters, South Carolina has 24 first down snaps. It ran the ball on 14 of those, for a total of 20 yards. The longest run was on a quarterback keeper by Dakereon Joyner, who gained six yards. Joyner led the Gamecocks in rushing with 14 yards on three carries, but didn’t have a carry for the final two and a half quarters. The zone read with Joyner, which was effective a week ago, was never used.

“We don’t have a second pitch,” a frustrated Muschamp said.

2. Offensive line

It’s hard to create much offense when you average 0.9 yards per rush. Appalachian State is a good defensive team, but South Carolina has to get more production in the run game. That falls on the offensive line, which got absolutely dominated.

“We got stalemated on by a smaller defensive line,” Muschamp said.

The coaches tried to make adjustments, but those didn’t help either.

“We got off our game and didn’t execute the adjustments well,” Donnell Stanley said.

3. Return game

South Carolina continues to get nothing out of kick returns, and aside from Edwards, nothing on punt returns. The steadfast refusal to take advantage of the fair catch option on kickoffs continues to baffle, as South Carolina almost never starts at its 25, what should be minimum starting field position. Freshman Xavier Legette was pressed into punt return duties, and didn’t look comfortable. He muffed a fair catch in the third quarter but somehow recovered it. That seemed to be in his head on the next punt, which he backed away from, allowing it take a big bounce for an extra twenty yards or so, costing South Carolina what should have been good field position.

Advertisement