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Wes Mitchell
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** With today's Missouri game, South Carolina starts what is the biggest two-week stretch of the season and arguably one of the biggest two-week stretches of the Will Muschamp era to date. With a win, the Gamecocks go into the Kentucky game with some momentum and a chance to go into the bye week at 3-2 with a big Georgia game on deck and postseason play very much attainable. A loss and the margin for error in doing so grows even more thin and the Kentucky game becomes an absolute must win to even sniff a bowl game.
** One of the most interesting matchups of the game will be South Carolina's defensive line versus Missouri's offensive line. The Tigers have done a great job of protecting quarterback Kelly Bryant so far this season and that's backed up by several statistics.
Bryant has been pressured on just 23.4 percent of his dropbacks this season, according to PFF. While my initial instinct was that Bryant probably gets the football out fast in Missouri's spread offense, as has been the case for the offense under Drew Lock, Bryant actually holds onto the football for an average of 3.01 seconds, the second-highest number in the SEC. Some of that may be due to the fact that Missouri hasn't faced top-level pass-rushers to this point this season, but regardless, the Tigers front has protected Bryant well and all five grade out well on PFF in pass protection.
The interesting thing about that, though, is that while Bryant has only been under pressure 15 times this season, his completion percentage drops all the way to 40 percent in those occasions and both of his interceptions have come while under pressure. Obviously, every quarterback sees a dip in performance while under pressure versus a clean pocket, but Bryant has one of the sharpest dips in the SEC and has been very impressive as a passer when not under pressure through three games this season. In other words, it's always a key, but it's an even bigger key this week.
Against Alabama, we saw South Carolina's defensive front have some success pressuring Tua early in the game when the Tide was still trying to throw the football down the field, before Alabama decided there was no point and went right back to its short passing game. Bryant was a dink and dunk passer at Clemson, but he's improved as a down-field passer at Missouri and the Tigers actually have attempted to stretch the field quite a bit this season. A key to this game will be for the Gamecocks to put Missouri in a situation where they have to throw the ball down the field and then take advantage of it by pressuring Bryant into mistakes.
One final note there, Mizzou running back Larry Rountree III hasn't graded out well in pass-pro, so I wonder if Carolina won't look for opportunities to get him isolated and take advantage of that. In the running game, Rountree is off to a strong start to the year and has split snaps almost equally with Tyler Badie.
** We talked quite a bit about last week being a huge game for South Carolina's receivers and the need to win one-on-one battles down the field and there's some carry-over there in this one since both Alabama and Missouri play a lot of tight man-to-man coverage. The Tigers have big cornerbacks on the outside and it seems like their plan is to trust them in man coverage on the outside and play an extra man in the box against the run. The Carolina offensive line needs to have a huge game against a Mizzou defensive front that has graded out very well so far in order to give their receivers time for their routes to develop down the field - and then those receivers have to go make plays.
** I'm looking for Dakereon Joyner's role to continue to expand the next couple of weeks as he becomes a greater part of the game plan moving forward. Joyner has had a great week of practice, according to multiple people I've talked with.
** South Carolina continues to work to find its best combination of five guys in its secondary and this week's practice involved a lot of rotation with several different combinations of guys working with the first team.
I don't know what group will get the nod to start the game, but I do know that John Dixon got another look with the ones this week in practice with Israel Mukuamu sliding to safety in that scenario.
While I don't believe that Missouri has the weapons to expose South Carolina's secondary in quite the way that Alabama did last week, there are certainly some issues that are going to have to get cleaned up soon. The freshmen are coming along - Jammie Robinson had some really nice moments against Alabama - it's just a lot for any freshman to learn. I still think he's a big part of the Gamecocks' plans in the secondary this season.
** With the possibility of rain in the forecast today, I'm told that ball security was a huge point of emphasis from the staff during the final part of the practice week. Rain or not, I'd suspect we'll see a heavy dose of running backs Rico Dowdle and Tavien Feaster with the tight ends potentially playing a big factor too due to Mizzou's defensive scheme being so man-coverage heavy.
** I'm very curious to see how South Carolina chooses to defend tight end Albert Okwuegbunam. He's a huge mismatch for pretty much anyone on the Carolina defense and he's become a favorite target of Bryant.
** If the game comes down the special teams, both teams have strong specialists. Missouri's Tucker McCann handled all kicking duties and has a huge, accurate leg.
FINAL PREDICTION: This is a winnable game for South Carolina, to be sure, but this series has been rather unpredictable to this point, and that's an understatement. It does seem like Will Muschamp has had Barry Odom's and I think we saw glimpses last week of Carolina becoming the team we all thought they were in the preaseason. If Carolina can limit Kelly Bryant and force a couple of mistakes from him, then they win the game. USC 31-28.
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