Final Thoughts (and the painful truth) - South Carolina vs. Georgia Bulldogs

Every week here at GABA we take another look at the last game and offer up unique opinions, rants and other musings. Why rehash the Georgia loss? For nothing else we can all agree or disagree on why this game sucked AND all the while offering the upmost reading enjoyment to our rivals. Let’s limp through this.

Rush Defense

In another post, I mentioned one of the keys to winning the game was stopping Nick Chubb. Well, I forgot to mention Sony Michel (21-133), and Brian Herrien (9-82). My bad. All three running backs had over 300 yards combined. It didn’t matter they had only 29 yards in passing because the rushing attack was too easy for them.

Painful truth: The Gamecocks have the 100^th ranked rush defense in the NCAA college football statistics. Good news though!! UMASS has the 101^st ranked rush defense in the country.

Perry Orth

He earned a scholarship. He is the starting QB but his first half performance was appalling. 288 total passing yards, no TD and an INT. He also had MINUS 39 yards on 7 rushing attempts. The 2^nd half was pretty much the same Perry Orth all year. Some nice throws downfield late in the game but too inconsistent to keep starting each game.

Painful truth: Do we grind it out with Orth or do we try Jake Bentley? Give Brandon McIlwain the first quarter and then Perry Orth takes over? Maybe use both all the time? All three? Either way, Orth is not getting it done and he is not here next year.

Kurt Roper

The final years of the Spurrier era, recruiting dropped off. We don’t have ENOUGH experience or the right combination of talent to have the Kurt Roper type of offense. You can’t blame Roper for trying to find some sort of edge in this offense; however, running it up the middle seems like a wasted play.

Painful truth: Coach Roper inherited pieces of an offense that he is still trying to figure out. However, Kurt Roper has NOT figured out that Perry Orth can’t run. He can’t be used in the option. That was a bad play call.

Rico Dowdle

Besides the fumble, only seven rushing attempts, which is the same number of attempts Perry Orth had. If only we took those seven rushing attempts from Orth and gave them to Dowdle. Hmmm.

Painful truth: Feed Rico Dowdle.

Punt Returns

Losing possession due to a muffed punt is much worse than letting the ball roll the 5 yard line. But not even attempting to field a punt with our anemic offense is a huge advantage for opposing teams. It’s also an embarrassment.

Painful truth: If we don’t have anyone returning punts, we will be lucky to score 14 points a game.

Emotions

Angry, frustrated and sad are just some of the emotions I had on the first two drives. After that it was narrowed down to frustrated or listless. Please fill in the blanks with your emotions (or expletive):

1. I was ___________ when the refs didn’t call that first pass interference and when the refs didn’t call the second PI I was ______________ and then third I was totally like__________________ .
2. In the first half, Perry Orth made me feel ________________ and in the second half I felt ____________________.
3. Our defense has improved but when we couldn’t stop Chubb I was like__________________ and when we couldn’t stop the other running backs I was ________________ and ___________________, then I became __________________ and finally __________________.
4. On punt returns, or lack thereof, I wanted to ___________________

Painful truth:

Dear GABA readers, from an emotional standpoint, what is the painful truth about the South Carolina Gamecocks?