Third and forever: Where South Carolina struggled to say on the field

Coming into Saturday’s game against Texas A&M, there was a dissonance when it came to the South Carolina football team’s work on third downs.

Powered by good days against Missouri and Louisiana Tech, the Gamecocks were 29th nationally in converting in those situations. At times, however, it didn’t feel as is USC was nearly that proficient.

Saturday didn’t do much to dissipate those feelings.

The Gamecocks only converted two of their 13 third-down chances. The percentage of 15.4 was more dismal than the 25 percent against Kentucky and matched the team’s worst since early November of 2013.

“We went back through it last week,” Muschamp said. “We felt like we were doing some good things. Whether it was a protections issue, a route issue, we’ve had multiple issues. We’ll go back and look at it again this week. That’s all I can tell you.”

USC’s biggest issue was the slew of sacks that put the Gamecocks in uncomfortable third downs. Of the 13, seven had 12 or more yards to go. Only one was closer than six yards, and that was a third and 1 when Ty’Son Williams got stonewalled.

This story was originally published October 1, 2017 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Third and forever: Where South Carolina struggled to say on the field."