How ‘mouthing off’ cost South Carolina a chance for first-half touchdown vs. Vandy
South Carolina’s offense wanted to take the shot.
The seconds were draining away in the first half of what would eventually become a 41-7 blowout of Vanderbilt. The Gamecocks had run a draw to the Commodore 49-yard line and were facing fourth down.
USC coach Will Mushcamp wanted something more, but some extra-curricular activity got in the way.
“We want to take a shot to the goal line,” Muschamp said. “We’re calling it out and we’ve got three players mouthing off at their guys, and the clock runs out.”
Three players were farther downfield, trading a little trash talk with a cluster of Vandy players. Some of them ambled back to the line as the offense was suddenly trying to get into formation.
By the time USC was almost set, the clock had run down.
“We had no opportunity,” Muschamp said. “We got no timeouts left. We’re trying to take a shot in the endzone. It’s fourth down, I told (offensive coordinator) Mike (Bobo), run it down. Let’s go take a shot. Take a shot in the end zone, and our guys are mouthing off. We addressed that at halftime and it’ll be addressed (Sunday).”
In the end, it didn’t hurt South Carolina as they scored four touchdowns and a field goal to start the second half.
This came a week after Muschamp said that he’d planned to go for two and the win if his team was able to overcome a 14-point deficit against Florida in Gainesville.
And coming off his team’s first win of the season, Muschamp wanted to add one more detail about the words exchanged Saturday.
“It was their guys too,” Muschamp said. “So don’t go blaming our guys.”
