Gamecocks look to capitalize on struggling Vanderbilt team
For two teams tasked with replacing their starting quarterbacks this season, No. 14 South Carolina and Vanderbilt seem to be trending in opposite directions.
It took the Gamecocks (2-1, 1-1 SEC) exactly 11 minutes and 16 seconds to score their first offensive touchdown of the season.
Vanderbilt (1-2, 0-1 SEC), however, was held without an offensive touchdown in both of its first two games, and finally pulled through in the second quarter against Massachusetts last week, scoring on a touchdown run from one yard out.
When sophomore signal caller Patton Robinette broke the plane for the team’s first offensive score of the season, the Commodores quartet of quarterbacks had accumulated 302 passing yards over nine quarters of football.
South Carolina’s Dylan Thompson passed for 366 yards in his first game this year.
When Vanderbilt has worked its freshman quarterbacks into the game, it hasn’t been pretty. True freshman Wade Freebeck has had half of his attempted passes picked off, while redshirt freshman Johnny McCrary has thrown two interceptions on three attempts.
The Commodores' first-year head coach, Derek Mason, has seen something he likes in Freebeck, who, according to Mason, will split time at the position with Robinette against the Gamecocks Saturday.
“Teams are going to have to prepare for two quarterbacks,” Mason said during his radio call-in show this week. “We believe Wade is going to get better as he continues to play ... Patton Robinette is our leader, but Wade Freebeck is going to play.”
The inefficiency of Vanderbilt’s offense must be music to the ears of South Carolina’s defense, a unit that has been progressing slowly but surely this year.
After opening the season in historically bad fashion, doing little to slow down East Carolina’s Shane Carden show, but then holding off Georgia to secure a victory, the Commodores are a T-bone steak on the plate of the Gamecocks, a team hungry to prove itself in the SEC.
“Our confidence is building day by day,” sophomore linebacker Skai Moore said. "We came out here, and we’re banging today, getting after it. So, we’re ready for Vandy.”
South Carolina scored four touchdowns before the Commodores had much time to react in last season’s matchup. After that point, the Gamecocks were outscored 25-7 and were just able to hang on for a 35-25 victory.
In the team’s last visit to Nashville, South Carolina opened its 2012 season with a 17-13 win — a victory head coach Steve Spurrier hasn't forgotten.
“Two years ago, we barely squeaked by them,” Spurrier said. “Shoot, they could have easily beat us that day. We had some good fortune to beat those guys 17-13.”
But that was a much different Vanderbilt team.
The team’s leading passer and receiver from a year ago are now either in the NFL or have graduated. Perhaps the most important missing link from a year ago is head coach James Franklin, who filled the head coaching vacancy at Penn State in the offseason.
Franklin inherited a Vanderbilt team that went 2-10 in 2010, and pushed the team to back-to-back nine-win seasons in 2012 and 2013. The Commodores won both their bowl games those years, and earned a spot in the AP poll at the end of the season.
Spurrier and the Gamecocks will head into Saturday’s game cautious, knowing the challenges that any SEC East opponent brings to the table.
“I think half his recruiting class followed him to Penn State,” Spurrier said of Franklin’s departure. “But they’re not a whole lot different. Their players play hard, play smart. They challenge you.”