Gamecock defense concedes school-record 680 yards
Reaching the SEC championship game isn’t a lost cause for the No. 9 South Carolina football team. But it is going to be much harder than anticipated.
In Thursday night’s season opener against No. 21 Texas A&M, the Gamecocks took a 52-28 thrashing to a conference opponent and dug themselves into a sizable hole.
“That team was so much better than us it wasn’t funny. They out-coached us, out-played us, they were better prepared and they knew what they were doing,” head coach Steve Spurrier said. “If we played them again they’d be a three-touchdown favorite.”
The loss puts an end to South Carolina’s 18-game home winning streak, the best active run in the nation going into Thursday’s loss.
Spurrier’s unbeaten record in season openers at South Carolina came to an end with the defeat.
“We don’t have to worry about any more win streaks,” he said. “It was a good one while it lasted, and now we can go back to trying to be a decent team and not read the papers too much.”
While several things went wrong Thursday night, the most glaring deficiency was in South Carolina’s secondary. Young and untested, the unit allowed 511 passing yards on 44 completions and three touchdowns through the air to A&M’s sophomore quarterback Kenny Hill.
At times, the Aggies’ wide receivers looked unstoppable. Clearly outmatching the Gamecock defenders and leaving vast open spaces for Hill to deliver the ball, seven different Texas A&M players caught multiple balls.
Senior cornerback Brison Williams is one of the only South Carolina defensive backs with considerable in-game experience, and he was just as surprised at the aerial assault the Aggies brought to Columbia.
“It caught us off guard, how they came out playing against us,” Williams said. “We should’ve known that they were going to come out ready to play and having a chip on their shoulder to come beat us in our hometown.”
If the Gamecocks are going to make anything out of the 2014 season after starting off 0-1, the first part of the machine to be repaired is the defense — more specifically, the secondary.
Defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward implemented a new 3-4 defense this offseason, and Thursday served as the maiden voyage for the new defensive scheme. While the Gamecocks weren’t lined up in this formation for the entire length of the game, it did see them give up a school-record 680 total yards of offense.
Ward remains confident in the new 3-4 though, and plans to continue to work at it until results show.
“I don’t think it’s the system, whether we’re in 4-2-5 or whether we’re in 3-4 we’ve got to tackle,” he said. “We’ve got to play in space, and we’ve got to find a way to get to the quarterback.”
Along with the question mark in South Carolina’s secondary, the pass rush is another issue that must be resolved. In their first game without the likes of Jadeveon Clowney, Kelcy Quarles and Chaz Sutton, the Gamecocks struggled to worry Hill.
South Carolina only had one sack and collected just three quarterback hurries Thursday.
Despite facing a more formidable pass rush than his opponent, Gamecock quarterback Dylan Thompson turned in a performance that would be considered strong outside of the confines of a loss.
The redshirt senior threw for 366 yards and four touchdowns, but also added a critical interception when South Carolina appeared to be gaining momentum for a comeback.
“It honestly doesn’t matter how well I think I played. The scoreboard will tell you that story,” Thompson said. “We’ve just got to get better next week and come back ready to go to work.”
Next week the Gamecocks will take on a presumably lesser opponent in East Carolina, which could be seen as either an opportunity for recovery or a trap.
But one thing is certain: South Carolina still has 11 games left to play.
And with one loss already to its name, another could prove disastrous for the Gamecocks’ season.
“We got manhandled. We got clobbered tonight. That’s all you can say,” Spurrier said. “And we’ve got some serious coaching to do before the next game to see if we can be a competitive team.”