W
Wes Mitchell
Guest
First of all, I apologize for being a little out of touch in the middle of the week. We had a death in the family and I was back home, so I'm going to sort of combine some of what most weeks will be my middle of the week "scouting report" into this week's Final Thoughts with some recruiting as well.
INTERESTING RECRUITING NOTE TO KEEP AN EYE ON
As Chris Clark noted earlier this week in this post on which prospects each coach would be seeing this week, South Carolina wide receivers coach Justin Stepp will watch Powder Springs (Ga.) McEachern class of 2022 wide receiver Kaleb Webb play tonight.
As was the case last week when South Carolina saw a couple of prospects in the state of North Carolina while in town for the ECU game, it appears to be a trend that the Gamecocks will see prospects in the states they're playing in when applicable as several coaches will see Georgia prospects play today.
Back to Webb, he's currently a two-star prospect and committed to East Carolina but the 6-foot-4, 195-pounder has had a huge start to his senior season leading to offers from Western Kentucky, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tennessee. He won't be a two-star for long.
A track standout who is coming into his own on the football field, Webb played behind a couple of talented seniors last season but has quickly proved to be tall, speedy, jump ball playmaker this season.
The Gamecocks, I'm told, are extremely interested and if the in-person eval tonight matches the film from the first few games, then I would expect an offer to go out.
If South Carolina offers, then I expect Webb to visit at some point, potentially as early as the Kentucky game. Definitely a situation to keep an eye on.
Check out the film below...
ON TO THE GAME ITSELF...
** How good is Georgia? Currently ranked the No. 2 team in the country, many believe the Bulldogs will challenge Alabama as the top team in the country this season and from a talent standpoint, they are as talented as anyone in the country with as many blue chip prospects as anyone else.
Certainly it's been a small sample size for all teams at this point in determining if the hype is real with Georgia playing a really talented Clemson team and a UAB team that just struggled to match up from a size/speed/athleticism standpoint. That game was pretty much over within a few drives.
Is Georgia's offense as explosive as it looked against UAB, which had a defense that just didn't have the horses to keep up and had several straightup busts that led to big plays, or as inept at is looked against Clemson, which obviously has an extremely talented defense. The Gamecocks' defense clearly falls somewhere in between there.
I think we'll learn a lot about South Carolina's defense this week - how big of a leap forward have they taken? Or is it more about the opponents the first couple of weeks? - and a lot about Georgia's offense too for that matter.
As talented as Georgia's offensive line and running backs always are - this group being no exception - they've yet to really get the ground game going to the extent you would expect from them. Georgia has averaged just 4.12 yards per carry this season and even against UAB, it wasn't much better with just 4.3 yards per carry and a mimimal amount of that as a result of sacks.
There's no doubt that the Georgia staff knows the Gamecocks front four from a personnel standpoint and will have a healthy respect for that group. I'd also imagine, based on what we've seen from UGA so far this year, they'll look to attack through the air and a little more than they have in recent seasons and make Carolina's defensive backs prove they can hold up.
Carolina's defensive line has been borderline dominant through the first two games and it's safe to say that at the very least they're good. Are they great? Are they elite? I think we'll start to answer those questions this weekend and they'll once again need to find a way to be a huge factor in this game, just as they have for the last two, if Carolina is going to have a chance to hang around.
Who will start at quarterback for the Bulldogs? Kirby Smart keeps things in house down there and both JT Daniels and Stetson Bennett have both been practicing making it difficult to predict. Daniels is the more dynamic player who can make the bigger throws, but the offense doesn't change much with either QB.
Ultimately, Georgia's offense, and whether they can be consistent enough and explosiveness, will be the difference in if they're just a really good team or an elite, national-title contending team. And how that offense matches up with Carolina's defense will be the determing factor on if the Gamecocks can hang around in this game. Again, I think we'll start to learn quite a bit about that question and about the Gamecocks' defense this weekend.
** Regardless of opponent, Georgia's defense has looked dominant in both games, holding Clemson to zero touchdowns and UAB to a garbage-time score. In about every statistical category this defense has lived up to the hype so far.
This is as good of a front seven as the Gamecocks will likely face all season long and that's because they can do it all from the standpoint of holding up against the run and getting to the QB as far as the defensive line is concerned and their linebackers can both play the run and play in space. They're big, physical and fast with no obvious weaknesses.
Georgia's linebacking corps features the former No. 1 inside linebacker in the 2019 class in Nakobe Dean, the No. 1 outside linebacker in the 2019 class in Nolan Smith and the No. 3 outside linebacker in the 2018 class in Quay Walker - so, yeah, it's a loaded group, on paper and in reality.
Former Mallard Creek standout, and teammate of Gamecock OL Eric Douglas, Jordan Davis anchors the middle as a true nose tackle at 6-foot-6, 330 pounds.
Coming into the season, Georgia's secondary was seen as the potential weakness on that side of the ball, but they have held up well through two games. UAB wasn't capable of testing them, but they played well against Clemson's receivers too.
This matchup - Carolina's offense vs. Georgia's defense - is the one that should concern you as a Gamecock fan, if Carolina can't quickly clean up some issues from the last two weeks.
** If I had to guess on the South Carolina quarterback situation, I'd imagine that Zeb Noland starts at the position again with Luke Doty getting some type of playing time this week.
That's the impression I've gotten as the week has progressed and the impression that Shane Beamer gave during his weekly call-in show on Thursday night.
It is true that Doty has done more in practice this week than he has at any other point in the preseason prior to the injury and I would expect that the flow of the game and the game plan to dictate how much he plays.
** While I believe South Carolina's defense is capable of keeping them in this game, the big question is, can the offense move the football against this Georgia front?
Expecting the offense to win a shootout just isn't realistic but at the very least they'll need to be more consistent in moving the football than they were last week when four three-and-outs plus the turnovers put the defense right back on the field.
Shane Beamer emphasized again this week that it hasn't been just the offensive line that has led to the issues in the running game and that's true. But regardless of where all the blame spreads to, it's obvious to anyone that the running game is going to have to show marked improvement to have success this week. That's not negativity, but just the reality that Georgia is that talented up front.
South Carolina has been quite vanilla in the running game so far and I believe they'll have to mix it up by diversifying the run-game playcalling and getting the running backs more involved in the passing game, something I believe is going to be a big part of this scheme as the year progresses.
From a scheme standpoint, UGA doesn't take the all-out blitz approach that we've seen from EIU and ECU, so while the talent level is certainly increased compared to the last two weeks, the blocking approach will be a little bit different for Carolina's front without an extra blitzer or two to deal with on every single play.
Granted, Georgia, like anyone, will bring their share of pressure, especially on third down passing situations, but with the talent they have, UGA is more likely to try to get pressure and hold up against the run by just rushing four and playing coverage on early downs. The first step for Carolina will be to force UGA to start bringing extra pressure, something they'll do if they have to, by establishing the run.
With a stable of talented backs, it will also be important to find that hot hand early and try to establish one or two of the backs in particular early on. With the physicality of Georgia's front, this sort of feels like a Kevin Harris type game.
** Can Pete Lembo and that special teams unit find an advantage somewhere for the third straight week?
** Josh Vann and Dakereon Joyner each had their best game last week. They'll obviously need to continue that, but my eyes continue to be drawn to what Jaheim Bell has done in two games. I believe it's only a matter of time before he has a huge game.
** South Carolina emphasized penalties quite a bit going into last week's game yet they were an issue once again. The Gamecocks are currently 79th in the country in penalty yardage per game and 103rd in total penalties.
In most cases, the raw penalty numbers don't really tell the whole story. Penalties actually aren't a reliable factor in determining if a team is good or not because if a team is simply not making any penalties at all (interferences or holding for example) then they're actually probably not being aggressive enough.
But where penalties really kill a team is when it's either dead-ball post-whistle penalties or procedural penalties. Those are absolutely killer and the Gamecocks have had far too many of those through two games. They've been able to get away with it versus teams like EIU and ECU. But they certainly won't against UGA.
FINAL PREDICTION: South Carolina is going to need to play far better than it did last week to have a chance in this game and I'm sure they're well aware of that. We find out quite a bit about this team this week and potentially about Georgia as well. Ultimately, the Bulldogs are just too talented, particularly on defense, to pick anything other than a UGA win at this point in the process for the Gamecocks. Georgia 34, South Carolina 17
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