With Luke Doty providing burst of energy, ‘no one quit’ for Gamecocks vs. Mizzou
South Carolina football lost its fourth consecutive game Saturday, falling to a Missouri program under a first-year head coach that was considered by many to be the Gamecocks’ best chance left on the schedule for a win in 2020.
But after the 17-10 defeat, the mood of interim coach Mike Bobo, the players who spoke to the media and the fans who reacted on social media was hardly downcast. Instead, for the first time in weeks, morale was ... up.
“When things haven’t gone well for us, let’s be honest, we haven’t reacted well. We’ve gone the other way,” Bobo said of the team’s attitude earlier in the season. “And things didn’t go well (on Saturday), we got down 17-0, but nobody blinked. We talked about, some guys are gonna falter tonight. If somebody falters, hold that rope a little bit tighter till he gets back up.”
Coming off a emotionally draining week that included the firing of coach Will Muschamp and several teammates deciding to opt out, the Gamecocks responded with a performance that Bobo praised as gutsy despite the early deficit.
“They bonded together and they played for each other. Now, we would like to have the result. We felt a lot better in the locker room, but there’s a lot of hurt in that locker room tonight, because I thought they played their asses off,” Bobo said.
Freshman quarterback Luke Doty played a large role in energizing the Gamecocks and the fans inside Williams-Brice Stadium. Coming off the bench to start the second half, Doty provided an instant jolt for a moribund USC offense — and that jolt even made a difference for the defense.
“We definitely felt the crowd and the environment starting to get into the game a little bit more and when Luke came in, he kind of changed up the tempo. And he did his job, and I’m proud of him as well,” junior linebacker Ernest Jones said.
Even without Doty, Jones expressed pride in how the defense showed resilience coming off the worst three-game stretch in program history, in terms of points allowed — “Nobody on this team quit tonight. I mean, we gave it what we had, and I’m proud of these guys.”
But there was no denying that Doty was the star of the game. The Myrtle Beach High alum and former S.C. Mr. Football made a number of freshman mistakes, including a penalty for throwing past the line of scrimmage and the game-ending interception. But for an offense that was toiling near the bottom of the SEC, any change at all was welcome, and Doty’s ability to make plays happen on the fly was a skill set missing from the unit.
“It was great seeing that guy just keep fighting, scrambling,” offensive lineman Sadarius Hutcherson said. “Even when he didn’t see anybody open, he just made something out of nothing, and you know, you can’t ask too much from a freshman, and at the end of the day, he played well.”
With 139 yards passing and 59 rushing, Doty had a hand in roughly two-thirds of South Carolina’s total yards despite only really playing in the second half. And he himself sensed the energy flowing through the team after he took the field.
“It just comes down to being ready when your number is called, and I feel like I was ready when mine was called tonight, and just went out there, had fun. And everybody around us responded well,” Doty said. “There was a lot of fight on both sides of the ball, offense and defense. So really that just made everything feel good that no one quit. No one gave up. Everybody just kept fighting for each other and for this team.”
After Doty’s late interception to seal the game’s outcome Saturday, Bobo put his arm around his young quarterback on the sideline and had a quick conversation. They talked about what went wrong on the pick — he should have checked the ball down to a safer option instead of forcing it — but Bobo said he also took a moment to express his pride.
“You know, that’s a tough situation for any young man to go into — off the bench, down 17-0 but, you know, he responded, he didn’t blink,” Bobo said. “He played with confidence, and like I said earlier, he looked like he belonged. So, I just let him know I was proud of him. I’ve always been proud of Luke. He’s a positive guy, he’s a team guy. When you talk about playing for Carolina and wanting to be here and it’s all about the team and not himself, that’s Luke Doty.”
This story was originally published November 22, 2020 at 8:56 AM.
