USC handled Vandy but it didn’t feel like a big win. So how does it carry forward?
There’s the gambling mantra out there that good teams win and great teams cover.
South Carolina’s football team isn’t great, thought it did manage to cover the point spread against Vanderbilt. It managed that cover in a manner far from pretty, scoring the touchdown to get over the 15-point final line with 6:39 on the clock and later missing a chance to pile on.
It seemed to represent a game fraught with contradictions. Things never seemed so easy for Will Muschamp’s Gamecocks, despite it feeling as if they held the largest seven-point lead imaginable most of the game.
The start was ghastly, and by the end things looks so incredibly one-sided, it leaves one unsure what exactly to take from it.
“I thought it was very workman-like,” Muschamp said. “Offensively, very balanced. Obviously ran the ball well. We threw the ball well at times.
“Really proud of our guys, you know an SEC win at home, and get ready for next week.”
At game’s end, South Carolina had a yardage edge of 440 to 189. One has to march all the way back to 2012 to find a game where a USC opponent has gained so few yards, strangely a 44-11 USC loss to a Muschamp-led Florida squad.
On a per-play basis, things were a little better for Vandy, though a 3.8 yard average is pretty bad.
Derek Mason’s Commodores had 125 yards on their first four drives, giving the sense of a dogfight, and then an average of 7.1 yards a drive the rest of the way.
“Lost to a tough team in South Carolina,” Mason said. “I thought this defense played hard. I thought they played hard all night.
“This group never felt like they were out of the fight.”
The Gamecocks offense contributed greatly to what amounted to a sense of unease through much of the first half. USC lost a fumble on Vanderbilt’s 10-yard line early on. Even after striking for a pair of touchdowns later in the half, it missed a chance on fourth-and-1 to make it a two-score game and only got three points from two drives that started inside the Vanderbilt 35.
Even a late stuff on the Commodore goal line prevented a touchdown that would’ve provided icing on the final score. Yet the overall numbers were decent, and they came without a few notable offensive players (a starting running back, receiver, a first- and second-string lineman). A bouquet of fresh faces got some work and had their moments.
That’s to say nothing of senior Bryan Edwards setting the school record for catches.
So how does this carry forward exactly?
Vanderbilt is bad, no doubt. But Tennessee was bad, and that didn’t turn out well for South Carolina. And the game sat in this uncanny valley of dominant in some senses — often the senses that best determine future games — but not so dominant as to provide a sense of calm for a fan base feeling somewhat frazzled from the past eight weeks.
Next week brings Appalachian State, a one-loss squad fresh off being tripped up by a rival. Winning there would mean climbing to 5-5 before back-to-back games as an underdog against Texas A&M and Clemson.
Perhaps a dominant win would’ve given the feel of a bounceback. Or perhaps Saturday was a dominant win in the end, but dressed as an uncomfortable slog.
But it leaves the vague sense of uncertainty, a win to be sure, but neither hanging on nor running away in a year where things rarely seem to fit cleanly or follow in an orderly manner.
