Shaw, offense remain bright spot for football team
Watching Saturday’s game between South Carolina and Kentucky was like déjà vu. For the past three weeks, the Gamecocks have built up a comfortable lead, only to let defensive and special team miscues let the other team back into the game.
But the win over the Wildcats was different. By looking at the stats, it appeared that South Carolina would likely be able to keep Kentucky at bay. The Wildcats were one of the worst offensive teams in the SEC. However, the Gamecocks let Kentucky make it a game again and score 28 points, in Columbia, with one of the worst offenses in the conference.
Here it is: If South Carolina continues to play defense like it did this past weekend, the Gamecocks will lose at Arkansas. They’ve gotten away with the miscues against the bottom-feeders of the SEC and Central Florida, but that can’t continue.
The Arkansas tailback duo of Alex Collins and Jonathan Williams has racked up a combined 1,188 yards and seven touchdowns in six games.
In addition, the Gamecocks have struggled at Arkansas in recent years, losing the last two games in Fayetteville and five of the last seven against the Razorbacks overall.
Five games into the season is plenty of time to see some defensive improvement. Now, if you take the first half of all of the games, South Carolina has a pretty good defense.
But the game doesn’t end at halftime.
For whatever reason, the third and, particularly, the fourth quarters have been troublesome for the Gamecocks.
But the upcoming three-game road trip will determine what kind of season this will be. The best-case scenario is that the defense regroups, plays the way it’s capable of and does enough to let the offense get the win.
The worst case scenario is that the defense continues to miss assignments and Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri light up the defense in the second half and the Gamecocks come back to Columbia 2-4 in the SEC.
But on to more positive things. We can’t overlook the offense. The Gamecocks are 30th in the NCAA in total offense, averaging over 476 yards per game. They are on pace to be the best offense that the school has ever seen.
Unfortunately, they have been overlooked by the defensive troubles, but that doesn’t mean everyone should forget about them.
Mike Davis has been a godsend for the offense and Connor Shaw is playing better than he ever has. In addition, multiple wide receivers have stepped up so far this season.
Here is something that I’ll let you ponder: What if South Carolina had this year’s offense with last year’s defense?