W
Wes Mitchell
Guest
There's obviously a lot to unpack here as far as how the game played out, but from a big picture standpoint, it's another tough loss for South Carolina in one of the games that we all seemed to agree was winnable prior to the start of the season. Vegas usually knows when it comes to these things so maybe we should have all been a little more wary of the fact that Missouri opened as a 10-point favorite on Sunday, but it's still hard for me to believe that there's 20 points difference between these two teams, which makes this loss all the more difficult for the fan base to swallow, I'm sure. Not to take anything away from Missouri. That's a solid football team, but after watching that game, I also don't get the impression that was an upper echelon SEC team that is just simply better than South Carolina - the Gamecocks made too many mistakes and couldn't capitalize on opportunities provided by Mizzou and again had some plain bad luck on top of all of that as the game got away from them.
** I'm not sure if it was more the sore elbow affecting him or if he just wasn't comfortable, but Ryan Hilinski clearly didn't look like himself early in the game and the offense as a whole struggled to find any type of rhythm. It seemed like the staff would have made more of a concerted effort to get the running backs involved in the game early too. Missouri, I'm sure, knew about the concerns about Hilinski's elbow and wanted to take away the run and force Hilinski to prove he could beat them.
I don't blame the staff for trying to get Hilinski some easy throws early on, since just running the football on first and second downs would have played right into Mizzou's hands, but several of the RPO calls early were dictated into throws by the Mizzou defensive calls.
As the game progressed and the second half unfolded, the offense and Hilinski seemed to find a little bit more of a rhythm, but it was too late and the disparity in number of plays that each team ran in the game piled up on the defense late. It's not like Carolina had big plays in the running game and just went away from it. Rico Dowdle averaged just 2.1 yards per carry and Tavien Feaster 2.3, but there were probably some opportunities before the game got out of hand to try and be a little more hardheaded in the running game and call more true run plays, as opposed to RPOs.
** Missouri made several huge plays that were the difference in a game that otherwise wasn't particularly clean for either side. With the offense already struggling, the early hole on the overturned Hilinski "backwards pass" was a momentum killer after an impressive goal line stand from the defense, which actually played pretty well early on. Not to blame the refs again, because South Carolina has more problems than the guys in stripes, but I still fail to see how that's considered a "catch" and then essentially a fumble by Hilinski when if the same exact thing had happened on a pass to a wide receiver, he never would have been granted possession of the ball. If there's no possession, then there's no backwards pass and it's simply a batted down, incomplete pass, which is clearly what Hilinski was going for.
The offense failing to convert anything out of the fumble recovery in plus territory a couple of drives later was another huge momentum-killing outcome.
Obviously, the pick-six was an absolute killer with the best drive of the day ending in a 14-point swing when the team seemed on the verge of cutting the lead to just three. The subsequent fumble on a third and short on the ensuing drive seemed to be the nail in the coffin even though the defense held strong and got a stop which resulted in a missed field goal.
** There were still too many missed tackles here or there, and the personal foul penalties in the second half can't happen, but the defense played well enough to win for most of the game and, as I said above, the number of plays that Missouri was able to stay on the field for ultimately wore down the defense. Their inability to get off the field on third downs didn't help either.
Even though South Carolina was still in the game at the half, the sins of the first half were paid for in the second half as fatigue seemed to settle in. In the first half, I saw a defensive front that was able to hold the point of attack against the Missouri running game and that was able to get pressure on Kelly Bryant on a fairly consistent basis, with the Missouri offensive line relegated to having to hold just to slow the Carolina DL in passing situations.
In fact, as the offense put up just 31 yards of offense in the first half, during the same stretch, the defense forced a punt, turnover on downs, punt, fumble, field goal, interception for a TD, punt, TD, and punt in Mizzou's first nine drives of the game. You'll take that about every time.
As the game wore on, the running lanes opened up a bit more and Mizzou was able to grind out their drives a little bit more, but even then Larry Rountree averaged just 3.8 yards per carry and Tyler Badie 1.6 yards per carry. Kelly Bryant was able to hurt the defense a bit in the QB run game and, as we suspected they might, Mizzou called more designed QB runs today than they have the entire season with the Tigers hurting Carolina with both the QB draw and the QB power.
** I'll have to go back and watch the replay to know exactly what happened up front, but the Missouri defensive line clearly won the battle against the Carolina offensive line, especially as the game wore on and those guys pinned their ears back and rushed the quarterback.
** Stats don't always tell the story in a game, but in this one they do. Missouri ran 87 plays to South Carolina's 65. Missouri rushed for 194 yards and South Carolina rushed for 16. South Carolina was just 3-16 on third downs (many of them were third and longs), while Missouri was 8 of 19.
** That's all I've got for now, guys. I know you're all frustrated right now, and rightfully so. I don't have all the answers for you right now. I don't think it was necessarily that South Carolina lost the game, but more so how it lost the game. And that the margin for error for even making a bowl game has been whittled down to next to nothing. As always, we'll have more analysis and thoughts on the game - how it happened, why it happened, and where the team goes from here - throughout the week after rewatching the game.
** I'm not sure if it was more the sore elbow affecting him or if he just wasn't comfortable, but Ryan Hilinski clearly didn't look like himself early in the game and the offense as a whole struggled to find any type of rhythm. It seemed like the staff would have made more of a concerted effort to get the running backs involved in the game early too. Missouri, I'm sure, knew about the concerns about Hilinski's elbow and wanted to take away the run and force Hilinski to prove he could beat them.
I don't blame the staff for trying to get Hilinski some easy throws early on, since just running the football on first and second downs would have played right into Mizzou's hands, but several of the RPO calls early were dictated into throws by the Mizzou defensive calls.
As the game progressed and the second half unfolded, the offense and Hilinski seemed to find a little bit more of a rhythm, but it was too late and the disparity in number of plays that each team ran in the game piled up on the defense late. It's not like Carolina had big plays in the running game and just went away from it. Rico Dowdle averaged just 2.1 yards per carry and Tavien Feaster 2.3, but there were probably some opportunities before the game got out of hand to try and be a little more hardheaded in the running game and call more true run plays, as opposed to RPOs.
** Missouri made several huge plays that were the difference in a game that otherwise wasn't particularly clean for either side. With the offense already struggling, the early hole on the overturned Hilinski "backwards pass" was a momentum killer after an impressive goal line stand from the defense, which actually played pretty well early on. Not to blame the refs again, because South Carolina has more problems than the guys in stripes, but I still fail to see how that's considered a "catch" and then essentially a fumble by Hilinski when if the same exact thing had happened on a pass to a wide receiver, he never would have been granted possession of the ball. If there's no possession, then there's no backwards pass and it's simply a batted down, incomplete pass, which is clearly what Hilinski was going for.
The offense failing to convert anything out of the fumble recovery in plus territory a couple of drives later was another huge momentum-killing outcome.
Obviously, the pick-six was an absolute killer with the best drive of the day ending in a 14-point swing when the team seemed on the verge of cutting the lead to just three. The subsequent fumble on a third and short on the ensuing drive seemed to be the nail in the coffin even though the defense held strong and got a stop which resulted in a missed field goal.
** There were still too many missed tackles here or there, and the personal foul penalties in the second half can't happen, but the defense played well enough to win for most of the game and, as I said above, the number of plays that Missouri was able to stay on the field for ultimately wore down the defense. Their inability to get off the field on third downs didn't help either.
Even though South Carolina was still in the game at the half, the sins of the first half were paid for in the second half as fatigue seemed to settle in. In the first half, I saw a defensive front that was able to hold the point of attack against the Missouri running game and that was able to get pressure on Kelly Bryant on a fairly consistent basis, with the Missouri offensive line relegated to having to hold just to slow the Carolina DL in passing situations.
In fact, as the offense put up just 31 yards of offense in the first half, during the same stretch, the defense forced a punt, turnover on downs, punt, fumble, field goal, interception for a TD, punt, TD, and punt in Mizzou's first nine drives of the game. You'll take that about every time.
As the game wore on, the running lanes opened up a bit more and Mizzou was able to grind out their drives a little bit more, but even then Larry Rountree averaged just 3.8 yards per carry and Tyler Badie 1.6 yards per carry. Kelly Bryant was able to hurt the defense a bit in the QB run game and, as we suspected they might, Mizzou called more designed QB runs today than they have the entire season with the Tigers hurting Carolina with both the QB draw and the QB power.
** I'll have to go back and watch the replay to know exactly what happened up front, but the Missouri defensive line clearly won the battle against the Carolina offensive line, especially as the game wore on and those guys pinned their ears back and rushed the quarterback.
** Stats don't always tell the story in a game, but in this one they do. Missouri ran 87 plays to South Carolina's 65. Missouri rushed for 194 yards and South Carolina rushed for 16. South Carolina was just 3-16 on third downs (many of them were third and longs), while Missouri was 8 of 19.
** That's all I've got for now, guys. I know you're all frustrated right now, and rightfully so. I don't have all the answers for you right now. I don't think it was necessarily that South Carolina lost the game, but more so how it lost the game. And that the margin for error for even making a bowl game has been whittled down to next to nothing. As always, we'll have more analysis and thoughts on the game - how it happened, why it happened, and where the team goes from here - throughout the week after rewatching the game.
