watched our bowl game again. But when I think back over the season about the 3 games we gave away, UT, Missouri, and UK, folks we could have been 10-3 as opposed to 7-6, imo.
Gamecock football 2014: What could have been? I just
- Thread starter Freddie.B.Cocky
- Start date
At a minimum. Not to mention, the Aubrun game that we left on the table. It's a cliche, but our entire season was sabotaged by 4 or 5 crucial plays.
Yep, and the thing that kills me to this day is that we handed UT 2 straight games back to back. It's hard enough to beat the viles as it is but gosh don't gift wrap games for them. Those 2 games sting me to the core to this very day, still can't get over them.
I was thinking the same thing today Freddie. We could have been 10-3 and with a stroke of luck, 11-2 with another top 5 road upset. It makes me wonder about next year, especially with some of the talent on the defensive line coming on. I can see us going and 9-3 realistically, but Lord-willing this club turns out to be a pleasant surprise and fulfill SOS's word, "Circle your calendars on Nov. 28. On that day, you will say we had a great season." Although that isn't word for word quote, I really do believe next year we could very well be back on track. Just need to find someone other than Deke Adams to coach our D-line and teach them proper form and style of play.
This post was edited on 2/17 4:08 PM by bowiestar2003
This post was edited on 2/17 4:08 PM by bowiestar2003
Coulda, woulda, shoulda... We could also have been 4-8. Let's not start sounding like Dabo. I find it very disturbing that Coach Spurrier has said that his team quit last year.
I agree Hoover, but we were fortunate to be bowl eligible and win that bowl. Just being optimistic, not Daboistic.
But, those wins over UF, UM and UGA were not gift wrapped by those teams the way those UK, Missouri and UT games were. In my mind we defeated UF, UM and UGA, granted by a small margin but they didn't give us the games, again imo.
Come on now, I just watched the Miami game again today, USC beat the Canes. The game was not given to us.
WHAT? No, more comments? I thought for sure everyone would give their opinion on this topic!
This post was edited on 2/17 11:12 PM by Freddie.B.Cocky
This post was edited on 2/17 11:12 PM by Freddie.B.Cocky
Here's my take on it. This team should have been no worse than 8-4 in the regular season with a shot at 9-4 in a bowl game. Many will say that we could have just as easily have been 4-8 are not taking into consideration that we had 14 point leads midway through the 4th quarter against Mizzou, UK, and UT. We didn't have to come from 14 back to beat UGA, ECU, or Miami. Replay this last season with better coaching on the defensive side of the ball (and the offensive side of the ball to an extent) and we beat Mizzou, UK and UT by 7-14 and we probably lose to Florida (no way we win a game the way we did like that twice....that game we did catch all the breaks). That gets us to 8-4 with a close win over UGA and close losses to Florida and Auburn.
Anyway, I don't think we are that far off from being a strong team again (i.e., a 10 win team). Our defense should be decent....maybe not great....but decent. Because of that I am putting all the pressure on Connor Mitch for this upcoming year. In my opinion we need him to be nearly as good as Dylan Thompson or smart enough to manage the game if he's not quite at that level. I don't think that is asking too much from a red shirt sophomore 4-star QB. Our running backs are solid to carry the load if he's not slinging it as much as DT. If he turns out to be a good QB for us, we will be fine. If not, we will struggle until he improves or someone takes his place. In any event, we need to find a QB this year because our defense should be loaded in 2016 and 2017.
This post was edited on 2/18 11:57 AM by gamecockjosh
This post was edited on 2/18 11:58 AM by gamecockjosh
Anyway, I don't think we are that far off from being a strong team again (i.e., a 10 win team). Our defense should be decent....maybe not great....but decent. Because of that I am putting all the pressure on Connor Mitch for this upcoming year. In my opinion we need him to be nearly as good as Dylan Thompson or smart enough to manage the game if he's not quite at that level. I don't think that is asking too much from a red shirt sophomore 4-star QB. Our running backs are solid to carry the load if he's not slinging it as much as DT. If he turns out to be a good QB for us, we will be fine. If not, we will struggle until he improves or someone takes his place. In any event, we need to find a QB this year because our defense should be loaded in 2016 and 2017.
This post was edited on 2/18 11:57 AM by gamecockjosh
This post was edited on 2/18 11:58 AM by gamecockjosh
But, we did block 2 kicks late in the game against UF. In the Missouri, UT and UK games our defense simply got out of the way of those team's offense. I know we caught a couple of breaks in the UF game but we still made the plays to win the game. In the case of the Missouri, UT and UK games our defense LAID DOWN. Those teams did not earn the wins we gave them the wins. In the UF game, imo, we made the plays to win the game, yes we got a couple of breaks but in the end we still made the plays.
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