I have a tradition with my dad that we predict the score of the day's game on the way to every Carolina game, but I always pick Carolina to win in my prediction. Of course, most Carolina fans knew deep down that there was little chance in that game. I told my friend a few days before my "Carolina wins every game" prediction that I would be decently happy if we lost by 28 points or less. We fell right on that number, losing by 27, and so my reaction is mostly "meh". I think there were obviously some negatives (as there are in any blowout loss), but there were some positives too that I think we can build off.
To get things started, Georgia might be the favorite to win the national title this year. I know that some Carolina fans would hate that only slightly less than Clemson winning it, but it is what it is. They have had an absolute elite defense for years now, and they finally have a QB and offense to match. Ignore the Clemson game, Clemson also has an elite defense. We were the first team to score a TD on Georgia in 3 games, and that was honestly accomplished against backups. There is not a single position group that you would take ours over Georgia's players. To win games like that, you either need the more talented to play astronomically bad (they didn't), the less talented team to play astronomically good (we didn't), or preferably both. So lets break it down.
Offense:
I have a bit higher hope on the offense after yesterday. Despite only scoring 13 points, I thought they had flashes of being pretty good. A lot will be made of the O-line, and should be. It's a position group that has to get fixed. A lot of it seems to be communication or downright missing blocks. There were several times that Georgia had players come through completely untouched. That being said, Georgia has the best D-line in the country, and it's not especially close. And there were times (perhaps only times that my optimistic self could see) that the O-line offered the QB enough protection on pass plays to allow the QB to make a play. O-line has to get a lot better though, I think everyone knows it but I'll leave it there.
I actually really liked the play calling (with 1 obvious exception I'll get to) We mixed up the runs and passes decently well and moved the ball OK for a large part of the game. Ironically, the offense has the opposite problem of last year when people were blaming Bobo for our offensive struggles. The O-line is simply played so bad in these 3 games that it's almost impossible for us the run the ball. The running backs get the ball and theres already a defensive player right in front of them. It is extremely hard to run an offense like that and until we figure it out, the offense won't look good no matter who is calling plays. The end of the first half was obviously a disaster. You have to weigh the risk/reward benefit when calling plays like that. The odds that we were going to have a 99 yard drive with 34 seconds, or even get into field goal range, were very slim, while the odds that we would get a safety with our O-line play were not. Doty should have thrown that away and made a mistake that he can learn from, but Beamer should have never called that. Luckily, he admitted as much in his Sunday teleconference today. Really showing his leadership there. Admitting mistakes was something Muschamp definitely lacked and therefore he never learned from them or changed anything about what he did. It's a good lesson to learn in a game we weren't winning anyways.
It's clear to me why the staff started Zeb today and I think it was the right call. I think the coaches knew that Luke was good to play but very rusty, and that Zeb would be the better QB to start out. If it looked like the game was getting away from us, we would put in Luke and he could get that rust off in a live game. Of course, injury led to that decision early, but I think it was the right one. Luke got much much better as the game went on. He airmailed some passes, but he also hit some dimes in the deep ball. His scrambling ability is going to be very fun to watch when we aren't playing the best defense in the country. He will also be a lot better if we can find a way to make it so he's not running for his life on every play.
Also briefly, I like what I see out of our receivers so far, Josh Vann and Jalen Brooks both had great catches in this one. We didn't use the tight ends much so I expect 5 questions about that in the call-in show please.
Defense:
Obviously the defense had its worst game, allowing 40 points. I still think the defense is pretty good, but they were completely outmatched. They have got to get off the field on 3rd down, but that's something they've done really well in the first 2 games so we'll see. We will find out what they're made of next week I reckon. I don't have much more to say. Cam Smith got burned a few times by elite receivers. Our D-line failed to get pressure when paired against an O-line full of NFL starters. I'm just not going to read much into this one.
Special Teams:
I'll continue my weekly "gush about the special teams" post. It's an aspect that you only notice when it's going really really good or really really bad, but we have been the latter for awhile, so its nice to just see everything clicking. All of our kickoffs were touchbacks. All of our punts were short returns. We didn't have any returns because Georgia's special teams played excellent as well. Parker white hit his 2 field goals. We had another play on the field goal where the snap was high and Kai Kroger did a good job spotting it (great play again by him but what's going on, mr. long snapper?)
2-1 for the good guys. That is as good as anybody could have reasonably expected. There's a big one on the horizon. these first 3 games almost perfectly went like they were following a script. A blowout to a nobody, a close win to a bad group of 5 teams, and then losing bad to one of the best teams in the country. But we're past the script games now. Now it's time to start proving some people wrong and about showing recruits that this is not a Muschamp team anymore. If Beamer Ball is gonna rear its head this year, it's going to start this week. Go Gamecocks. Beat Kentucky.
To get things started, Georgia might be the favorite to win the national title this year. I know that some Carolina fans would hate that only slightly less than Clemson winning it, but it is what it is. They have had an absolute elite defense for years now, and they finally have a QB and offense to match. Ignore the Clemson game, Clemson also has an elite defense. We were the first team to score a TD on Georgia in 3 games, and that was honestly accomplished against backups. There is not a single position group that you would take ours over Georgia's players. To win games like that, you either need the more talented to play astronomically bad (they didn't), the less talented team to play astronomically good (we didn't), or preferably both. So lets break it down.
Offense:
I have a bit higher hope on the offense after yesterday. Despite only scoring 13 points, I thought they had flashes of being pretty good. A lot will be made of the O-line, and should be. It's a position group that has to get fixed. A lot of it seems to be communication or downright missing blocks. There were several times that Georgia had players come through completely untouched. That being said, Georgia has the best D-line in the country, and it's not especially close. And there were times (perhaps only times that my optimistic self could see) that the O-line offered the QB enough protection on pass plays to allow the QB to make a play. O-line has to get a lot better though, I think everyone knows it but I'll leave it there.
I actually really liked the play calling (with 1 obvious exception I'll get to) We mixed up the runs and passes decently well and moved the ball OK for a large part of the game. Ironically, the offense has the opposite problem of last year when people were blaming Bobo for our offensive struggles. The O-line is simply played so bad in these 3 games that it's almost impossible for us the run the ball. The running backs get the ball and theres already a defensive player right in front of them. It is extremely hard to run an offense like that and until we figure it out, the offense won't look good no matter who is calling plays. The end of the first half was obviously a disaster. You have to weigh the risk/reward benefit when calling plays like that. The odds that we were going to have a 99 yard drive with 34 seconds, or even get into field goal range, were very slim, while the odds that we would get a safety with our O-line play were not. Doty should have thrown that away and made a mistake that he can learn from, but Beamer should have never called that. Luckily, he admitted as much in his Sunday teleconference today. Really showing his leadership there. Admitting mistakes was something Muschamp definitely lacked and therefore he never learned from them or changed anything about what he did. It's a good lesson to learn in a game we weren't winning anyways.
It's clear to me why the staff started Zeb today and I think it was the right call. I think the coaches knew that Luke was good to play but very rusty, and that Zeb would be the better QB to start out. If it looked like the game was getting away from us, we would put in Luke and he could get that rust off in a live game. Of course, injury led to that decision early, but I think it was the right one. Luke got much much better as the game went on. He airmailed some passes, but he also hit some dimes in the deep ball. His scrambling ability is going to be very fun to watch when we aren't playing the best defense in the country. He will also be a lot better if we can find a way to make it so he's not running for his life on every play.
Also briefly, I like what I see out of our receivers so far, Josh Vann and Jalen Brooks both had great catches in this one. We didn't use the tight ends much so I expect 5 questions about that in the call-in show please.
Defense:
Obviously the defense had its worst game, allowing 40 points. I still think the defense is pretty good, but they were completely outmatched. They have got to get off the field on 3rd down, but that's something they've done really well in the first 2 games so we'll see. We will find out what they're made of next week I reckon. I don't have much more to say. Cam Smith got burned a few times by elite receivers. Our D-line failed to get pressure when paired against an O-line full of NFL starters. I'm just not going to read much into this one.
Special Teams:
I'll continue my weekly "gush about the special teams" post. It's an aspect that you only notice when it's going really really good or really really bad, but we have been the latter for awhile, so its nice to just see everything clicking. All of our kickoffs were touchbacks. All of our punts were short returns. We didn't have any returns because Georgia's special teams played excellent as well. Parker white hit his 2 field goals. We had another play on the field goal where the snap was high and Kai Kroger did a good job spotting it (great play again by him but what's going on, mr. long snapper?)
2-1 for the good guys. That is as good as anybody could have reasonably expected. There's a big one on the horizon. these first 3 games almost perfectly went like they were following a script. A blowout to a nobody, a close win to a bad group of 5 teams, and then losing bad to one of the best teams in the country. But we're past the script games now. Now it's time to start proving some people wrong and about showing recruits that this is not a Muschamp team anymore. If Beamer Ball is gonna rear its head this year, it's going to start this week. Go Gamecocks. Beat Kentucky.
