1. it threatened rain all day long but other than occasional sprinkles, it never came. The analogy there is I kept waiting for the UNC offense to blow up on us. That never came either. Our coordinators were masterful in how they ran their sides of the ball. CSB, IMO, has an excellent staff. The future is very very bright.
2. Dakereon Joyner played out of his mind good Saturday. He was amazingly poised. He played like a 5th year senior. The moment never looked too big for him, and he showed us a strong and accurate arm to go with his running ability.
3. Kevin Harris is Thor's Hammer. He has excellent balance, and the pile always moves when he drives into it. Arm takles don't stop him. Message to Kevin: you will be missed by Gamecock Nation. i totally understand why you want to go to the NFL. RB's have a short shelf life and you are a contact runner. Wishing you all the success in the world in your pro career.
4. Bell was a stud. He's a slash type player even though he is a larger guy. He can run out of the backfield, be a matchup nightmare as a TE and be a really good possession guy as a WR. We need to use him a lot this coming year as he will be in the NFL the year after that.
5. THE OL: they deserve special mention. We had a very effective passing game and ran for over 300 yds. There were only a couple of times when any of our QB's were pressured. Joyner could scramble away from it and Col. Zeb was protected well for the most part. You don't run up 543 total yards unless your OL is clicking. As often as they were bashed during the 2021 season, they deserve special mention for playing very well.
6. THE DEFENSE: Coach White had a great plan. If you take away 2 big plays where we have coverage busts, we held UNC to 7 points. The run play for 50 yds was one where our S took a bad angle. UNC had spread us our very wide. When the tackle was missed, it became a foot race that the UNC RB won. Then they had the dipsy doodle, double reverse, throwback play. We left the WR drift out into sideline, and no one was within 30 yards of him. But it tells you a lot about the teams that UNC had to resort to gimmicks to have success. On the other hand, we simply lined up and beat them mano y mano. Now consider we had no backups at S. It was near that at the other positions. Between injuries, Covid & opt outs/xfr's, the starters knew they had to play the entire game. Kudos to coach White & staff.
7. 3 of us attended. My younger brother, his son and me and nearly 20,000 of our closest Gamecock fans had a ball. My nephew, whom I have nicknamed "Lucky Charm", hollered and screamed like wild banshees. Our part of the stadium was like Williams-Brice Stadium Jr. And we stayed and stayed and stayed. It was as much fun as we've had at a Gamecock football game in quite some time. I highly recommend the experience. But them y'all know that already.
All I can sya now is Happy New Year !!! I wish each and every one of you a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and joy filled 2022.
2. Dakereon Joyner played out of his mind good Saturday. He was amazingly poised. He played like a 5th year senior. The moment never looked too big for him, and he showed us a strong and accurate arm to go with his running ability.
3. Kevin Harris is Thor's Hammer. He has excellent balance, and the pile always moves when he drives into it. Arm takles don't stop him. Message to Kevin: you will be missed by Gamecock Nation. i totally understand why you want to go to the NFL. RB's have a short shelf life and you are a contact runner. Wishing you all the success in the world in your pro career.
4. Bell was a stud. He's a slash type player even though he is a larger guy. He can run out of the backfield, be a matchup nightmare as a TE and be a really good possession guy as a WR. We need to use him a lot this coming year as he will be in the NFL the year after that.
5. THE OL: they deserve special mention. We had a very effective passing game and ran for over 300 yds. There were only a couple of times when any of our QB's were pressured. Joyner could scramble away from it and Col. Zeb was protected well for the most part. You don't run up 543 total yards unless your OL is clicking. As often as they were bashed during the 2021 season, they deserve special mention for playing very well.
6. THE DEFENSE: Coach White had a great plan. If you take away 2 big plays where we have coverage busts, we held UNC to 7 points. The run play for 50 yds was one where our S took a bad angle. UNC had spread us our very wide. When the tackle was missed, it became a foot race that the UNC RB won. Then they had the dipsy doodle, double reverse, throwback play. We left the WR drift out into sideline, and no one was within 30 yards of him. But it tells you a lot about the teams that UNC had to resort to gimmicks to have success. On the other hand, we simply lined up and beat them mano y mano. Now consider we had no backups at S. It was near that at the other positions. Between injuries, Covid & opt outs/xfr's, the starters knew they had to play the entire game. Kudos to coach White & staff.
7. 3 of us attended. My younger brother, his son and me and nearly 20,000 of our closest Gamecock fans had a ball. My nephew, whom I have nicknamed "Lucky Charm", hollered and screamed like wild banshees. Our part of the stadium was like Williams-Brice Stadium Jr. And we stayed and stayed and stayed. It was as much fun as we've had at a Gamecock football game in quite some time. I highly recommend the experience. But them y'all know that already.
All I can sya now is Happy New Year !!! I wish each and every one of you a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and joy filled 2022.
