-If Lorenzo Ward still has a job after this season, I don’t know what to say. I’m not fond of throwing someone under the bus or pinning poor performances on one person, but IMO, coaching is literally the only reason why this talented secondary could have regressed so much. I understand that Gilmore is going through a sophomore slump, but he showed way too much talent last year to be playing THIS terribly. For crying out loud, he was roasted in practically every big play Auburn got tonight. If he’s just not a good fit for CB anymore, we need to figure out where we can best use his speed, instincts, etc. Again: failure to coach.

-Was that tipped Hail Mary TD a back-breaker or what? There’s no way to know for sure, and I won’t say that we would have won. But if we’d gone into that locker room down 21-14, I think this could have been a very different game. That was just one of those freakish “Only at Carolina” moments. Awful in every sense of the word, and I can understand why the team would fold psychologically after that. It would take a very, very special group of players to let something that insanely horrible roll off their backs.

-On that same note, however, who’s brilliant idea was it to do a squib kick when Auburn’s offense was moving down the field so quickly? I’m really tired of seeing our special teams accomplish nothing at best and be a liability at worst.

-Overall, though, I think a lot of our failure to execute came down to nerves, jitters, whatever you want to call it. How often does a team win its first championship game? You gotta go there a few times and get seasoned, I think; it’s a big stage and it’s hard not to get rattled. Spencer Lanning was a great example of this, since he’s been (mostly) money all year but was way off with his missed FGs. Felt bad for the guy, since he’s much better than that and I’m sure he was beating himself up.

-Speaking of execution, I do take issue with a) not utilizing Lattimore much in the first half and b) not utilizing Jeffery much in the second half. Alshon finished with 4 catches for 36 yards. Seriously? Auburn’s secondary is (or was, rather) worse than ours, and while I understand that establishing the run game was critical, I can’t believe we ignored Alshon so much. This is no knock on our other guys, but this is the kind of game where you have to give your stars a chance to do work.

-Connor Shaw looked good in limited action. I think he’ll be a great one for us when his time comes, so it’s nice to have that to look forward to.

Anyway…bah. I could have handled a close or at least hard-fought victory, but to let Auburn blow us out and shatter record after record while they were at it was just awful. However, all is not lost! We have a chance at a 10th win and we’ve done things this season that most USC fans had only dreamed of. We’ve got a lot to be proud of and I’ll suspect we’ll be making return trips to Atlanta.

It wasn’t a few plays that made the difference. Every time Auburn had the ball they had multiple big gains. That little sputter in the second half only happened ‘cause their receivers were dropping deep balls. Carolina’s defense was completely non-existent. I could’ve let loose with the criticism against every single starter on the team during the game, and some of the backups, but there was just no point. I have no energy to discuss them anymore. Every one of them may have played the worst game of their careers; and, for some of them, that’s really saying something.

On offense, the line absolutely blew it. They couldn’t handle Auburn’s line and blitz packages at all. I’d extend the problem to every blocker though, including the receivers. Lattimore had no room to run, inside or out, for the part of the game that actually mattered.

That was an absolute embarrassment on a national stage that this university will never live down. Our team pooped their pants on that field, had their mommy’s come down from the stands, wipe them clean, and spent the rest of the game curled up in the fetal position crying. Everyone who thought this program had turned a corner is just flat wrong. They only lost to one East opponent in a year when the East absolutely stunk monkey fudge, and then totally wet the bed in the postseason like usual. They have gotten moderately better overall as a team, with the exception of the secondary, but the results were pretty typical for the Spurrier era.

It would’ve been better had Carolina never played in this game. Now, we’ll be known as the worst SEC East winner, and worst SEC title game contender, of all time. I’d rather suffer in the dark than suffer in the spotlight any day, but it’s all just really another black mark in the history of a program with perhaps the most of any in the nation. The underachieving culture of Carolina is still intact and kicking. The players’ performances in that game were an embarrassment to themselves, to the school, and dare I say to football itself. The best thing Carolina can do is stop playing football for good, like they should’ve done sixty years ago.

I thought DiMarco did some good things in the blocking game, and receiving. Spurrier and Johnson both called a good game for most of the way. I know I gave Johnson some gruff during the week, but he put the guys in a position to make some plays. Lattimore really tried to fight for yardage.

I suppose almost every player had at least one or two good plays. Whitlock broke up a deep ball in the endzone. I think it was Holloman who initially broke up that hail Mary at the end of the first half. The line blocked guys on some plays. I could go on, but I’m sure people get the drift.

Alright, well, there it is.

1. We should be proud of ourselves. It might have been a down year in the East, but we beat the snot out of UGA, UT and UF. Plus we de-throned Bama.

2. All of you guys who wanted to play against Cam got your wish. The SEC and NCAA lifted the weight of the world off his shoulders on Wednesday, and lo and behold he absolutely murdered us both in the air and on the ground. You just saw five weeks of frustration applied to our posterior. I dont think any SEC team could have withstood that.

3. All you guys who wanted a spy got your wish too. The spy got his ass cut, and we have no safety help over the top when our corners were in one-on-one. You can’t spy if you have a crappy secondary … as demonstrated last night.

4. Notwithstanding that fact, Ellis didnt coach a bad game. Cam was unstoppable, with the added luxury of a top-qualitly all Senior OL and two extremely fine backs in McCarron and Dyer and a MVP type game for WR Darvin Adams. Cam is clearly now the second best passing QB in the league, only slightly behind Mallet - and well ahead of the three next best ….. Garcia, Bray, Murray. He is the finest running QB who ever played a down in the SEC, including guys like Tim Tebow and JeMarcus Russell.

5. Everyone’s down on Ward (who is a monster recruiter) but did Lorenzo Ward coach Stephon to bite on that double move? Or not to jump for the tip ball? No. Stephon had a very bad game .. .just so happening to coincide with a career game by Cam Newton and Darvin Adams.

6. Garcia played a below-average game. He missed both Lattimore and DL Moore for sure TDs. He threw two picks one of which was totally inexcusable. He overthrew receivers and underthrew them. Moments of brlliance (the TD strike to Pat DiMarco) were overshadowed by his looking out of synch. Additionally, Spencer Lanning missed two long FG (and, as an aside, the reason why Spurrier had Lanning kick a FG in the fourth quarter was certainly to ensure that Lanning didn’t have a month of the yips before the bowl game). You wonder why the defense looked like hell? Because the O couldnt score and the Special Teams gave Auburn incredible field position.

7. Finally, I hope everyone lets their blood cool and look back on this season with pride. We got spanked by Auburn? Ok, so what. The minute Cam Newton put on pads with his Get Out of Jail Card in his back pocket, we lost that game. But we won the East. We humbled our division rivals and our arch-rival Clemson. We have set a higher bar. We get a chance to humiliate Auburn next year. Improving a program is a process. We’re on the rise. We might just win it all next year. So keep the faith.

16 rushing attempts 3 receptions for Lattimore, is horrible play calling.

The announcers said something interesting during the broadcast “The Auburn coaching staff believes Spurrier doesn’t have the patience to run the ball” and I think they were dead on. Lattimore gives this team the best chance to win and getting him the ball less than 20 times is unacceptable.

I just thought I would drop by and say that, while at the dome I had the pleasure to sit next to a SC family. They were very knowledgeable about your team and great fans. Even after the game was way out of hand they stood proud to be a Gamecock. They congratulated the Auburn Fans around them after the win and were real class acts.

Just thought I would pass this along since my only other dealings with USC fans were not so pleasurable when you guys came to Jordan Hare. And for FWIW, I think that you guys will be loaded next year and should repeat as East Champs