All you have to do to assign blame for South Carolina's second straight loss to Clemson at Williams-Brice Stadium is look straight at the numbers.
In considering who did what on Saturday night, the numbers jump out at you before the performances of the men who created them do. Clemson outgained the Gamecocks by 262 yards. South Carolina racked up nine penalties to hand 76 free yards to a Tiger squad that didn't need them. Before Saturday, it had been 12 years since the Gamecocks had lost four consecutive Palmetto Bowls.
But nowhere was the gap between these two teams more pronounced than at quarterback. Of the 262 yards separating Clemson and South Carolina's offenses, 159 were through the air. Kelly Bryant finished his night on the Clemson bench with 23 completions on 34 attempts, two touchdowns and one interception. For South Carolina, Jake Bentley went the distance for 16 completions on 29 attempts with one touchdown and two interceptions.
And as large as the margin between Bryant and Bentley may seem on paper, it was titanic in practice.
It wasn't at first. Neither player had a good opening quarter, with Bryant going 4-for-5 for six yards and Bentley going 5-for-7 for 15 yards. Clemson found the scoreboard first courtesy of Ryan Carter's walk-in pick six, but the game was still well within grasp for the Gamecocks. One drive, one missed route, one turnover could still reverse the tide and put South Carolina back in control.
But South Carolina — and Jake Bentley — never took control. Bryant threw for 153 yards in the second quarter alone and helped Clemson to a 20-point lead going into the half as the Gamecocks punted on four straight drives. The Tigers then stretched their lead to an insurmountable margin of 34 before pulling their starters, allowing South Carolina 10 meaningless points in the final frame.
As always, the truth lies somewhere within the facts. There is the fact that just under a third of Bentley's 126 passing yards came on one play: a 38-yard toss to Bryan Edwards deep in the fourth quarter for South Carolina's only touchdown and the only glimpse Gamecock fans received of the Bentley who showed up for Arkansas, Missouri and North Carolina State.
There is the fact that after converting four of its first six third downs, South Carolina failed to convert any of their following seven. Of those, Bentley was sacked once, intercepted once, threw four incomplete passes and found Bryan Edwards open 16 yards short of a first down.
South Carolina did not even pass the 50-yard line of its home stadium holding the ball until Keisean Nixon picked off Bryant early in the fourth to set up a Parker White field goal. When Nixon nabbed his second interception of the season to finally drag South Carolina into Tiger territory, Bentley had 49 passing yards on 21 attempts.
He had 49 when he came off the field from that drive as well, his first try to Hayden Hurst was swatted away and his second to Randrecous Davis fell to the turf.
And there is the fact that Bryant's longest completion of the night was 61 yards, easily besting Bentley's mark of 38. Bryant's came on Clemson's first play of the second half, starting with a not-even-close-to-61-yard lob to Hunter Renfrow and finishing with Renfrow torching the entire Gamecock secondary for six points.
The plays are easily linked: Bryant's longest completion put Clemson ahead by 27 and sent fans running for the exits; Bentley's came with the stadium near half-empty and traffic backed up around the corner on Rosewood Drive.
But when asked about the gap between his program and Dabo Swinney's, South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp declined to name a single facet of his team's play, let alone a position or player.
"I think that in any situation — and I've learned in this game for a long time — it's never as good as it seems, and it's never as bad as it seems," Muschamp said. "It's somewhere in between. We need to continue to recruit. We're down about 10 scholarships right now because of the attrition we've taken over with. It is what it is; you don't hear me complaining about it."
Bentley might not even be to blame for his own low output. Of his 16 completions Saturday, only five were for 10 yards or more. If co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kurt Roper favors low-risk short passes, Bentley can't be expected to put up Madden numbers.
But Bentley seemed to hold himself accountable.
"At the end of the day, I throw the ball," Bentley said when asked about the play that resulted in Carter's fateful pick six. "I have to be responsible for every pass I throw so that's 100 percent on me. I have to be better than that."
But what it comes down to is this: Bryant and Clemson figured out South Carolina's defensive schemes far faster and to better end than could Bentley and South Carolina figure out Clemson's.