What Vanderbilt said about USC: Gamecocks ‘frustrating’ to top QB

The members of the South Carolina football team didn’t take too kindly to some of Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason’s comments before the Gamecocks scored a 37-14 win on the road.

After the game, Mason and his players had a few things to say about USC.

Mason on the Gamecocks pass rush:

“As the game went on, South Carolina did a great job of bringing multiple guys to try to get pressure on Kyle (Shurmur). … You look at us not being able to stay on the field and that does become frustrating to the quarterback. He does have to keep his composure. He needs to come back to the sideline and share information with our coaches about what he sees. The coaches can then make adjustments. He got pressured a little bit, hit a little bit.”

Shurmur got sacked twice and completed just 47.3 percent of his passes.

Mason on Gamecocks run game:

“We were getting just really moved, so the ball was getting to the second level way too fast. I though South Carolina did a good job on the hard (double teams), racing to the (linebacker).”

On his “street fight” comments:

“They lost. Reality of the street fight was, it was going to be a street fight. … When you don’t land any punches, you can get knocked out. And I felt like at the end, we didn’t land enough punches. South Carolina gets a win and that’s a good football team.”

Shurmer on falling behind USC early:

“We didn’t start fast. When you do that and you play a good team like South Carolina, you dig yourself in a hole. So we as a group, we all have to start faster.”

Shurmer on USC’s defense:

“I think South Carolina did a good job on defense, but we have to do better on offense.”

Dare Odeyingbo on South Carolina’s offensive line:

“I mean that’s a good offensive line. I wouldn’t say they do anything that special particularly. Sometimes we would just misfit in the running game. We were going one-for-one in the running game getting blocked and missing tackles as a whole. They’re a good offensive line but it wasn’t as much them doing stuff to us as us not making the plays that were there to be made. … (There were times) when the first guy in was missing the tackle, bouncing off, flying forward for 3-4 more yards all that kind of stuff. At times yes, I think we were getting out-physicaled”

South Carolina ran for more than 270 yards and quarterback Jake Bentley was rarely pressured.

Dare Odeyingbo on the mood the Gamecocks left them with:

“They came into our house and put 37 on us. We weren’t that effective in the running game. They held us to 14 so the mood of the team is not very good.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2018 at 4:38 PM.