SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL

The Gamecocks dropped Saturday's game 47-23 to Alabama in the Tide's return to Williams-Brice for the first time since 2010.

After the game, Nick Saban and a handful of players spoke with the media to talk about the performance and what they saw from South Carolina.

Nick Saban, head coach

Opening statement

“To come and play on the road and go out there and get a win is really important. I think that it was our goal to come in here and play the game for 60 minutes, and I thought we did that offensively. We ran out of gas a little bit on defense, but we played 86 plays of defense, which is a lot especially in conditions like this. I think we still need to do work to play to the standard that we like to play to and maybe what we are capable of playing to. We are going to continue to work with our players and show them things that they did well and try and fix the things that we didn’t do as well. We knew it was going to be a tough place to play out here. We were going to have to play through the assault, sort of keeping on.”

On overall performance

“I’m really proud of the way our team competed here today. We didn’t always execute perfectly, but that’s something that we need to continue to work on and improve.”

On penalties

“I thought Tua (Tagovailoa) had a really good game...(He) did a good job at executing in the game, but we don’t have enough players to get through the season if we play 86 plays of defense every week. The defense has to get off the field. We had opportunities to get off the field on third down. There were way too many penalties in a game; we stopped ourselves with penalties and we helped them with penalties on defense jumping offsides on 3rd-and-10, and on 3rd-and-5 they scored a touchdown.”

On the offensive output

“We need to have more balance on offense. It’s great that we are a passing team, and I’m happy with that. I think we are doing a good job with featuring some of our best talent on our team by what we are doing, but I also think that from a team standpoint we need to be able to run the ball effectively as well.”

Tua Tagovailoa, quarterback

On his performance Saturday

“I think it really starts with our coaching and our guys up front. Everyone I’m surrounded with. Those are the guys that make plays. Those are the guys that make me look good. If we just stick to what coach tells us, I feel like things like this can happen...I just came out to play. Come out, do my best, and whatever the result was, that was the result."

On if other WR’s are getting overlooked

”I think every one of them deserves the same amount of attention as Jerry is getting. The thing that was frustrating for Jerry today, was guys were double-teaming him and grabbing him. You can see how he gets everyone else open. It’s not just one guy, and all those guys will tell you that.”

Najee Harris, running back

On hurdling play

“I try not to hurdle actually. I said that my last few years, but I guess just watching film, I felt like I could do it.”

Xavier McKinney, defensive back

On if he is heartbeat of defense

“I feel like we have a defense full of leaders. Every guy on that defense played hard, everybody has a say-so. We just play together. We’re more like a family. I’m not the dad of the family. We have 11 dads out there. We have a lot of hard working guys on the field.”

On the freshman performances on defense

“I feel like as a freshman you go through some of that process of the struggle, but that’s something they will do better with in just preparing and being ready. They might have struggled a little bit, but I thought they played pretty well, just for what formations we got today.”