SC Game thoughts...

Editors note:
This was originaly posted in the thread \"Disgusted\" but I though it made a good topic to start discussion about the SC game.

Written by dapolla

Well, this is why I HATE this game every year, because every year SCarolina can beat us. It's always just a question of when.

The bad news: We're not as fast as we thought we were. My GOD, was SCarolina fast! On both sides of the ball! They averaged something like 6.7 yards PER PLAY, wouldn't let us run, outran our secondary AND our wideouts, and just generally were better than us.

Also, we're immature. How can you be given 30 yards in a row on penalties and only have a 35-yard drive to show for it? How can you be given a roughing penalty on one punt and a fumble recovery on another and still not score? How can you get a 68-yard punt return and a 51-yard run from scrimmage in the same game and not score as a result of either?

Stafford was rattled, throwing off his back foot. After the game Kevin Butler said he never once saw Stafford get set. He was just lobbing the ball up there. It's a tribute to how good a receiver Massaquoi really is that he caught that 3rd-and-23 over his head sideways falling down, because it was overthrown and was behind him.

Also...where is CMR's recruiting integrity? At his final preseason press conference he stated quite clearly that he was going to look for spots to put Joe Cox into the game, because he's such a talented quarterback. However, in both a blowout win over OSU and a game against the Gamecocks in which we could have used a change of pace -- and MS could have used a breather -- Joe Cox never took his ballcap off. I'm not calling for JC to start, by any means, but do you remember Colorado last year?

The good news: we're better than SCarolina. We just weren't better than them on Saturday. Look, we spent a whole year prepping for OSU. They spent the whole year prepping for us. The fact of the matter is that SCarolina is going to lose more than one SEC game. We have the capability of beating Tennessee -- who lost to Cal and looked terrible against Southern Miss -- as well as Auburn, as their game this week showed us. We can beat 'Bama. Nobody knows Florida's real capabilities, because they've played two Pop Warner teams. I don't know that we can beat LSU, but we're certainly capable of taking this loss as ammunition, running the table in the SEC and at least winning the East. That's really the goal every year, isn't it? Because the SEC is just a game...the division is a marathon. That's one of the major reasons we won the SEC in '05...we were able to just prep for LSU.

That's not to say that I'm not sick over this loss. But I know that we can recover.

:dry: :dry: :dry: Dapolla: I can remember a team that beat Alabama in the first game of the season and then lost to SC in the second. This team went on to run the table and win the SEC, go to the Orange Bowl and beat a good Missouri team. The year was 1959. That team was a pretty mature group of players led by Fran Tarkinton, a Jr. QB. This team will not be so lucky, talented yes, but very inexperienced. This team needs to be coached up, not a lot of hand holding and pats on the back. They need to grow up and do it in a hurry. If they don't ,it could be a long season. They need to do that gut check thing I talked about in an earlier post. I would like to see then more physical and wrap up on their tackles. Arm grabing and roll blocks don't cut it when your playing the big boys on our schedule. Like you, I would have liked to see our second string QB, Cox get a shot. A change of pace might have helped a little bit. We got out played and out coached this past Saturday. Georgia is better than that and I hope we don't see that scenario repeated. We may get beat again, but I hope it won't be from lack of effort. We better not over look Western Carolina. Like Lou Holtz said in a motivational speech, \"Someone needs to pay for this loss and it might as well be Western Carolina.
As always, GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!!:evil: :evil: :evil:

Makes me feel a little bit better, but I still hate that we had to lose to Spurrier.

dapolla wrote:

Editors note:
This was originaly posted in the thread \"Disgusted\" but I though it made a good topic to start discussion about the SC game.

Written by dapolla

Well, this is why I HATE this game every year, because every year SCarolina can beat us. It's always just a question of when.

The bad news: We're not as fast as we thought we were. My GOD, was SCarolina fast! On both sides of the ball! They averaged something like 6.7 yards PER PLAY, wouldn't let us run, outran our secondary AND our wideouts, and just generally were better than us.

Also, we're immature. How can you be given 30 yards in a row on penalties and only have a 35-yard drive to show for it? How can you be given a roughing penalty on one punt and a fumble recovery on another and still not score? How can you get a 68-yard punt return and a 51-yard run from scrimmage in the same game and not score as a result of either?

Stafford was rattled, throwing off his back foot. After the game Kevin Butler said he never once saw Stafford get set. He was just lobbing the ball up there. It's a tribute to how good a receiver Massaquoi really is that he caught that 3rd-and-23 over his head sideways falling down, because it was overthrown and was behind him.

Also...where is CMR's recruiting integrity? At his final preseason press conference he stated quite clearly that he was going to look for spots to put Joe Cox into the game, because he's such a talented quarterback. However, in both a blowout win over OSU and a game against the Gamecocks in which we could have used a change of pace -- and MS could have used a breather -- Joe Cox never took his ballcap off. I'm not calling for JC to start, by any means, but do you remember Colorado last year?

The good news: we're better than SCarolina. We just weren't better than them on Saturday. Look, we spent a whole year prepping for OSU. They spent the whole year prepping for us. The fact of the matter is that SCarolina is going to lose more than one SEC game. We have the capability of beating Tennessee -- who lost to Cal and looked terrible against Southern Miss -- as well as Auburn, as their game this week showed us. We can beat 'Bama. Nobody knows Florida's real capabilities, because they've played two Pop Warner teams. I don't know that we can beat LSU, but we're certainly capable of taking this loss as ammunition, running the table in the SEC and at least winning the East. That's really the goal every year, isn't it? Because the SEC is just a game...the division is a marathon. That's one of the major reasons we won the SEC in '05...we were able to just prep for LSU.

That's not to say that I'm not sick over this loss. But I know that we can recover.

To Respond:
Agree:
1) Ga will recover and will give everyone they play a full game. Always have.
2) Certainly capable of running the table and winning the east.
3) This division is a marathon as well as a week to week brawl.
Disagree:
1) do you really believe that Spurrier spent the entire year preparing for Georgia? To believe this would think mighty highly of ourselves.
2) On what do you base that Ga. is better than SC? At this point in time, not just Saturday, SC is better than GA.
3) SC has the capabilities to beat Tenn. and Florida as has been proved the past couple of years.

Good discussion topic though

You know..........can't really argue with his assessment.

Centgland wrote:

[1) do you really believe that Spurrier spent the entire year preparing for Georgia? To believe this would think mighty highly of ourselves.

I do believe this because Spurrier said it at one point. Kevin Butler or Dave Johnston, one of the two, quoted him on it during the post-game show.

2) On what do you base that Ga. is better than SC? At this point in time, not just Saturday, SC is better than GA.

Yergh. Hard to argue with that after the way we played Saturday. But I truly think it was a situation of not showing up. I think my major basis for that is that we gave SCarolina a LOT of opportunities, allowed them to run at will up our gut AND around our right end, and they still only scored one TD and 16 points total.

3) SC has the capabilities to beat Tenn. and Florida as has been proved the past couple of years.

And hey, let's see how the rest of the season shakes out. The way Tennessee played against Cal and UAB, they may be reverting to 2005 form. And nobody knows how good or bad Florida is, because they've played the little sisters of the poor two weeks in a row. And last week one of those little sisters hung 31 on them in the Swamp. SCarolina, with this win over us and a down Tennessee team and a possibly-down Florida team, could win the East. They have to watch out for Kentucky though...