The South Carolina Gamecocks (2-1, 1-1 SEC) offense shined in the their second SEC matchup of the 2018 season, notching their 10th consecutive win over the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Headed into the match-up, South Carolina had not played since Sept. 8, when they fell to highly-ranked Georgia at home. As a result of Hurricane Florence hitting the Carolinas, the Gamecocks were unable to face the Marshall Thundering Herd on Sep. 15.
With the Gamecocks up 20-14 at the half, Mon Denson and Ty’Son Williams added two touchdowns in the second half of action to propel South Carolina to a 37-14 victory. Kicker Parker White added three field goals to the score as well.
South Carolina’s offense dominated Vanderbilt’s, tacking on 534 yards, while the Commodores recorded 284. South Carolina also led the Commodores in average gained yards per play, with South Carolina at 7.0 and Vanderbilt at 3.9. Quarterback Jake Bentley provided 261 of the 534 Gamecock yards. He also threw for a touchdown.
“We saw on film, we had the opportunity to really use tempo against them,” Bentley said. “That’s what we did coming out of the second half. That was our plan going going into it and the linemen did a great job with getting set. It really all starts with them ... however fast we’re going depends on them ... it was a great job by everyone, to just execute and going fast is just something we practice all the time. I think being able to execute that fast is going to be big for us going forward.”
Rico Dowdle reached a season high in rushing yards, leading all Gamecocks with 112. As the Gamecocks and Dowdle capped their surprise week off, it seemed as if practice made perfect for the junior running-back.
“We had a lot of push, as you could see,” Dowdle said. “As we’ve seen other teams, we thought we can run the ball on them. That’s something that we harped on. We struggled in the run game a few weeks ago, said we were going to run the ball, and we was gonna make sure we ran it today, that’s something that we did in practice and prepared for.”
South Carolina will face the No. 17 Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday at Kroger Field in Lexington, Kentucky with kick-off set for 7:30 p.m. The Wildcats are 4-0 this season, with their most recent win being a 28-7 rout of No. 23 Mississippi State. Next weekend's matchup marks the first time since 2007 in which the Gamecocks will face an undefeated and ranked Wildcats team.