Sophomore tailback makes history against Bulldogs
Despite South Carolina’s 41-30 loss at Georgia over the weekend, sophomore running back Mike Davis and redshirt junior wide receiver Nick Jones had something to celebrate.
Both Gamecocks turned in career performances Saturday with Davis running for 149 yards and a touchdown and Jones hauling in six catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns.
“Mike Davis had about as good a game as any running back I have ever seen,” coach Steve Spurrier said. “He played his heart out.”
In the third quarter, Davis rattled off his second 75-yard run in as many games, becoming the only Gamecock ever to do so and earning a comparison between himself and South Carolina legend Marcus Lattimore from his coach.
“I just want to be that running back that makes exciting plays,” Davis said. “Get people on the edge of their seats.”
Entering the game, Davis was faced with comparisons to Georgia’s star running back Todd Gurley, but the Gamecock tailback collected 17 more yards than his counterpart on 14 fewer carries.
Davis said he used the comparison as motivation, as the tandem of Gurley and fellow back Keith Marshall was more highly touted than the combination of Davis and sophomore running back Brandon Wilds, who punched in a touchdown of his own in the game.
With two games down, Davis has already rushed for 264 total yards and two touchdowns and fell just short of scoring a third touchdown for the year when the South Carolina back was stuffed at the goal line in the second half of Saturday’s contest.
Jones amassed just 197 receiving yards a year ago and never found his way into the end zone, but after his career night against Georgia, he is on pace to shatter those numbers in 2013, and Spurrier said that Jones’s performance against the Bulldogs will warrant more targeting in the future.
“We should have thrown some more at him,” Spurrier said. “But we didn’t have the ball for that long.”
Another receiver that made a splash, though not on the scale Jones did, was sophomore Shaq Roland, who made three big catches for 48 yards while the Gamecocks were attempting to claw their way back in the fourth quarter.
While Davis and Jones said they were pleased to have turned in the big nights they did, both agreed the loss would prevent them from coming away from the game satisfied.
“It felt pretty good, but obviously it wasn’t enough,” Jones said. “We didn’t win the game, and that’s all that matters.”