Third down continues to plague South Carolina defense

One more stop.

That’s all the South Carolina defense was looking for in the closing minutes against Florida on Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium.

The offense was rejuvenated, and the thought on the sideline was if they could get off the field one more time, the Gamecocks would be looking at an improbable fourth-quarter comeback.

Instead, Kelvin Taylor raced 53 yards up the middle to the USC 1-yard line and then scored one play later to seal the fate for a South Carolina team that suffered a third straight loss where a play here or there in the fourth quarter could have changed the outcome.

“I thought our defense played really well in the first half,” South Carolina coach Shawn Elliott said. “They kept us in the ballgame. A couple of mistakes here and there in the first half on their part, but they played a tremendous game. Unfortunately, that third down play there at the end…”

Co-defensive coordinator Jon Hoke pointed out the Gamecocks were solid against the run up until that point. The longest run before then was a 14-yard gain, and the Gators gained less than 100 yards on the ground until Taylor went over the 100-yard mark himself on the carry.

“We felt very good in the run game until that last one,” Hoke said. “They executed and we didn’t. We backed out of a blitz and they hit us with a counter, creased us and we didn’t make the tackle. We had guys around the ball.”

Those third down plays is something that has haunted USC this season. Florida converted 11-of-19 third downs that pushed the opposition to 63-of-139 (45.3 percent) on the season. In eight conference games, those numbers increase to 55-for-104 (52.8 percent).

When the Gators took a 14-0 halftime lead, it was the Gamecocks’ inability to get off the field on the two scoring drives that proved to be crucial. After forcing a punt on the first Florida offensive series, South Carolina allowed the visitors to convert 7-of-8 third downs. On the one that failed, Taylor kept the chains moving by getting a fourth-and-1 by the nose of the football.

“Anytime you can stymie a guy on first and second down, then just let it slip up on third down situations is frustrating,” Elliott said.

It wasn’t for a lack up dialing up plays by South Carolina. They tried everything in their arsenal, but nothing seemed to work.

“Not getting off the field. Not executing. Not making a play,” Hoke said. “It’s pretty obvious we didn’t get off on some of them. We tried about everything. We pressured. We played zone. We played man. We had a tough time putting pressure on the quarterback whether we blitzed him, zoned blitzed him, man blitzed him or rushed with four. That makes it tough to get off the field when we don’t execute like we need to.”

Florida had an opportunity to put South Carolina in a large half-time deficit after Perry Orth was intercepted late inside the Gamecocks 20. But T.J. Gurley bailed the defense out with an interception of Treon Harris in the end zone.

Gerald Dixon also picked off Harris early in the third quarter to put the Gamecocks into Gators territory for just the second time of the game. But the offense sputtered and the defense had to return to the field.

Ultimately, it came down to the defense couldn’t get one final stop when they needed it. Florida held the ball for nearly 40 minutes and ran 76 plays to 48 for the Gamecocks. For a team that has little room for error, those things turn out to be a big deal. Whenever outcomes are decided on one or two possessions in the fourth quarter, the minor things become glaring.

“That’s the frustrating part,” Hoke said. “They’re working hard, busting their butts on first and second down and then we get to third down and let them off the hook. It’s always a small detail on every third down that was getting us. It’s unfortunate because they were doing a tremendous job on first and second down.”

This story was originally published November 14, 2015 at 6:03 PM.