On a night when Bryan Edwards broke the career yardage record for the university, the rest of the Gamecock receivers weren’t able to step up through the barrage of injuries at that position.

With Shi Smith, Chavis Dawkins, and OrTre Smith all hurt, the Gamecocks needed a near-perfect night from their complimentary receivers and didn't get it with the same problem of drops rearing its head.

“When it hits your hands we expect you to catch it,” Will Muschamp said. “Several times it hit guys in the hands and they don’t catch the football. It’s frustrating, we need to cash in on those situations better than we have.”

Outside of Edwards, who had nine catches for 90 yards and the team’s only touchdown, the second leading receiver for the Gamecocks was running back Rico Dowdle. He had five catches for 67 yards, most of which coming on the final drive.

“I think that it’s been frustrating. OrTre, Chavis Dawkins and Shi Smith are three guys that have been starters for us. They’re not in the lineup right now,” Muschamp said.” Xavier (Leggette) is a true freshman he’s doing a really good job, he’s playing a bunch of snaps. Bryan is obviously playing really well, we’ve gotta have some more guys step up.”

Leggette was the only other wide receiver to eclipse 40 yards, hauling in five catches for 42 yards. Walk-on Trey Adkins had the third most yards at that position with 33.

South Carolina struggled especially early, only gaining 117 yards passing in the first half.

“We were inefficient throwing the football when we needed to early in the game,” Muschamp said.

Edwards finishes the game with 3,045 career receiving yards, breaking former Gamecock Alshon Jeffery’s record, but post-game that didn’t seem to matter.

“We lost," Edwards said. "My goal was obviously to get all of those records and it’s good but we lost.”

South Carolina travels to Texas A&M next week with kickoff at 7 p.m.

The Gamecocks expect to get Dawkins and Smith back next week for it, and will need to improve throwing the ball—whether that's scheme or execution or both—if they have any shot at making a bowl game.