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On South Carolina’s defensive performance:
Defensively, for us, extremely disappointed...continued to struggle with some things in the run game. We had guys at the point of attack, we had some missed tackles, some missed leverages...we had three third downs in the first quarter that we don’t convert, which is critical to get off the field in those situations.
Overall impression of the game:
As poorly as things had gone, it’s a 14 point game at halftime, and you got every opportunity in the world to capitalize on some things. We just never got over the hump as far as things we needed to do to convert in the game...but our guys fought their butts off to get back in the game, extremely proud of that. We’ve got a bunch of young players that are going to continue to improve, but we didn’t handle the moment very well early in the game.
On South Carolina’s poor return coverage:
We’ve got to get faster as a team...It’s really hurting us on special teams. Antonio’s a really good player, especially with the ball in his hands. But that’s a major issue for our football team, we’ve got to improve our team speed.
On his emotions returning to The Swamp:
You know, it’s about the people, it’s not about the logo, it’s not about the buildings. And there’s a lot of people that obviously, because it hasn’t been a long time ago that I was here, just to shake Jim’s hand at the end and you stand there for 15 minutes talking to players. And, you know, that’s what it’s all about.
On the numerous drops and missed tackles by the Gamecocks:
I like to be technical about it, I think hand position on the drops might have been an issue...They have good backs, and in several instances on the missed tackles we didn’t bring our feet, we stopped in the hole a couple of times and when you stop in the hole against a better athlete you’re going to have a hard time tackling him.
On continued poor performances on the road:
I do feel like we are a different team at home, and that’s not a good thing. We’ve gotta learn to go on the road and play well. I told the guys in the locker room, ‘just learn from it and move forward’ and that’s what we’re going to do.