USC defense wants early wake-up call against Florida

The question has been asked several times throughout the season: Why does the South Carolina defense keep getting off to a slow start?

Nine games in, with the Gamecocks sitting at 3-6, USC is still searching for answers to the question that seems to have everyone associated with the team mystified.

“I’m not sure what it is,” junior defensive end Darius English said. “We talk about it all the time so it’s bound to happen eventually.”

The players and coaches, like many fans, have discussed the topic at length. But with only three games remaining USC is running out of time to make a fix.

South Carolina has trailed at the half in eight of its nine games and has yet to lead at halftime. The only game in which the Gamecocks didn’t trail at the half, they were tied with Texas A&M at 21.

Even UCF, which is 0-10 including a loss to Furman, led South Carolina 14-8 at the break.

“Sometimes they go out there and they try to make too much (happen) so early in a football game and it doesn’t kind of correlate,” coach Shawn Elliott said. “We talked (Monday) about starting strong. We understand our ballgame this week we’ve got to start strong and finish strong as well, put together a full four quarters.”

Elliott said he believes his team will be ready to go from the start on Saturday against a Gators squad that is outscoring opponents 77-20 in the first quarter.

“We’ve addressed it and we’re going to try to correct it,” Elliott said. “We’ve got this game and two others left. I think you’ll see a faster starting football team.”

USC’s leading tackler, Skai Moore, suggested earlier this season that the Gamecocks have had success playing more basic schemes in the second half. But senior Spur T.J. Gurley said defensive calls have not been the problem early in games. Gurley said the unit is in position to make plays but players aren’t getting the job done.

“Most of the time we’ve been missing interceptions and missing tackles, which keeps the offense on the field. We’ve just got to make our plays early,” he said. “That’s something that we’ve got to handle. As players you’ve got to be able to make your plays. When coach puts you in position you’ve got to be able to make the tackle or catch the interception or bat down the ball. We’ve just not been doing it early.”

Other than the first two drives, South Carolina’s defense played well in the first half against the Vols.

After scoring 14 points seven minutes into the game, Tennessee was held scoreless until late in the third quarter.

USC moved safety D.J. Smith into a starting role against the Vols, but he played only two series, both Tennessee touchdowns, before being benched in favor of Jordan Diggs. After gaining 142 yards on its first two drives, Tennessee had only 266 the rest of the game.

“Saturday was, you probably look at it from a defensive standpoint, we made a safety change right there and gave up a big play on a touchdown pass that he should’ve been right there waiting for,” Elliott said. “Maybe it was just an instance of, I won’t say not prepared, but it just caught him off guard a little bit.”