The boos rained at times during USC’s loss to Texas A&M: ‘That’s not good at all’
South Carolina’s players heard it from the sidelines.
Williams-Brice Stadium is a big place, but it’s not that big of a place. The emptier stands because of COVID-19 crowd regulations made the boos come through more clearly. And there were more than a few rounds of them Saturday, as the Gamecocks gave up five consecutive touchdowns to close out a blowout 48-3 loss to Texas A&M.
South Carolina’s defensive leader, Ernest Jones, said he heard the boos, but he didn’t totally get them.
“Yeah, we heard them,” Jones said. “That’s not good at all. As far as them booing, I’m not sure, were they booing a player, or were they booing one of the coaches? But either way, I mean, it’s football, people are gonna be frustrated, but I mean, I don’t understand the booing, I don’t get the booing, or what that’s gonna solve.”
It seemed the majority of the vitriol was aimed at Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp, the fifth-year steward of the program whose team has lost 13 of its past 19 games.
The past two have been troubling as the Gamecocks offense hasn’t looked particularly good beyond the first quarter of the LSU game, while the team is giving up 50 points a game.
There also seemed to be boos when freshman quarterback Luke Doty was pulled after a string of plays as a change-of-pace quarterback. For several weeks, some fans on social media have called for one of the two reserves, Doty or Ryan Hilinski, to either supplant or at least step in at points for starter Collin Hill.
Hill had a miserable game against the Aggies, going 8 for 21 for 66 yards with a pair of interceptions.
There was also the matter of a “Fire Muschamp” chant that broke out in the stadium. The coach was asked about the state of his support, but he did fall back on an old line about empathizing with the fans who were angry about how is team performed.
“I hope they’re pissed off,” Muschamp said. “That’s fine. The last two performances, I don’t think there’s any doubt they should be disappointed with how we played and performed and how we coached. We’re gonna continue to work and we’ve had success here. … And we plan on continuing to have success here. I think we recruited well. I think we’ve got good players in our program. I’m disappointed with our last two outings.”
