Is South Carolina football (finally) hitting its stride? What the evidence tell us
South Carolina routed Vanderbilt on Saturday. And because Vanderbilt is Vanderbilt, it’s hard to know what exactly to make of that.
It was either the start of the Gamecocks finally playing up to their potential. Or it was a nice victory over the SEC’s worst squad. And we won’t exactly have a great verdict until South Carolina takes the field this Saturday against Kentucky.
There is reason for optimism, though.
For starters, South Carolina is getting healthier on the offensive line. At long last! After nine weeks of starting a different combination of O-linemen, the Gamecocks finally started the same group in the trenches and the continuity paid off. In the 47-6 win over Vandy, quarterback Spencer Rattler (28 of 36, 351 yards, three TDs, one INT) wasn’t sacked a single time.
“Our protection on the offensive line was really, really good,” Shane Beamer said Sunday during his weekly teleconference. “They’ve taken a beating this year — literally and figuratively. They’ve taken a lot of criticism, but they were lights out yesterday. When you give Spencer time back there to throw, he’s gonna be effective.”
Then there’s the defense. A group that struggled to stay off the field for nine weeks allowed 53 first-half yards and just one touchdown. The Gamecocks missed very few tackles. They were constantly around the ball breaking up passes. They were solid on third down and didn’t allow big plays.
South Carolina was playing with energy, effort and enthusiasm. They’ve found something through adjustments, too, lining up more in three-down fronts, which gets their lengthy, athletic linebackers more snaps every Saturday.
Granted, this was against two-win Vanderbilt. But, if you’re Beamer, it was encouraging — and it is much better to say something is encouraging in September versus November, but nonetheless.
And it raises the question: With the Gamecocks (4-6, 2-5 SEC) needing wins over Kentucky and Clemson to make a bowl game, is South Carolina — finally — hitting its stride?
“Yeah, um, you don’t wanna make too big of a deal off one game,” Beamer said. “I thought defensively, we didn’t make enough plays in the second half, but we showed some flashes against A&M of pressuring the quarterback and being aggressive and getting off the field on third down.”
Beamer is not a stranger to the flack his team gets. He is well aware of the displeasure in how the offensive line has played — albeit, often because of injuries — for most of the season. And he knows that critics have very little faith in USC’s secondary.
But against a Vandy wide receiving corps that Beamer lauded all week, South Carolina allowed just over 100 yards passing and the Commodores’ top receiver — Will Sheppard — caught one pass.
“Our DBs take a lot of crap,” Beamer said. “But those were some pretty good receivers they were covering (vs. Vanderbilt). But people don’t wanna talk about that. They want to criticize one play that (cornerback) O’Donnell Fortune gave up where the receiver grabbed his facemask, jerked him down and we gave up a touchdown pass because of it. Other than that, you didn’t even notice Vanderbilt’s receivers.”
He’s right. But Vanderbilt is still Vanderbilt. As of Sunday, the Commodores have a bottom-25 offense in college football.
Beamer was not ready to make too much out of Saturday’s performance. He also didn’t want to rule out the win over Vanderbilt as a step in the direction of where the Gamecocks want to be.
“Again, I’m not gonna anoint us the ‘85 Chicago Bears defense because of one really good day,” Beamer said. “But if we can continue to build on what we did (Saturday) and keep getting better — not just defensively, but our entire team: offense, defense and special teams — we’ll have the November that we want.”
Next USC football game
Who: South Carolina (4-6, 2-5 SEC) vs. Kentucky (6-4, 3-4 SEC)
Where: Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, SC
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
TV: SEC Network
Stream: via the ESPN app
Line: Kentucky by 2.5
