Meanwhile, back on Earth, Wile E. Coyote – still believing he will finally capture his elusive prey – tumbles off a cliff. Anvil to follow. So it was for Vanderbilt fans who dared to dream the good showing in South Bend would translate into a better performance in SEC play against South Carolina. Instead, the Gamecocks inflicted a humbling 37-14 beat-down that was not as close as the score might indicate.
By FK Friedman
There are many ways to critique the game plan the Vandy brain trust set in place for this “street fight,” but let’s start with this: the better team won. The Gamecocks were very, very good on this particular Saturday afternoon. They quickly established that the week off from Hurricane Florence left them raring to go rather than rusty – and it was equally clear that the mistakes of their disastrous home loss to Georgia would be purged at our expense. On offense, Carolina put the ball in their playmakers’ hands early and often. The Gamecock’s opening drive consisted of Rico Dowdle gashing us up the middle – then as we shored up the box, Deebo Samuel took a jet sweep wide for another fifteen yards. As we panicked over how to stop the run, the Gamecocks threw short (and got a questionable PI call.) Then, off play action, Jake Bentley tossed an easy bomb to Shi Smith. It was 7-0 at 14:05 of the first quarter – and Carolina had already shown more creativity in offensive play-calling than we would show for the rest of the afternoon.
South Carolina torched our defense for 273 yards on the ground. They threw for over 200 yards more – smashing the 500 yard barrier. Jason Tarver was left to guess whether Deebo Samuel, Rico Dowdle, Shi Smith or Bryan Edwards would hurt him on any given play. And for fun, the Gamecocks let QB Jake Bentley run several times just to add to our frustration level. It was a beautifully called offensive game plan by the SC staff. Again, however, it makes any play-caller look smart when the SC o-line is blowing us off the line of scrimmage.
The creativity the Gamecock offense exhibited stood in stark contrast to Vanderbilt’s offensive scheme. Much like last week, in the first quarter we ran straight ahead and on every first down until we had dug ourselves a sufficient hole. We left Kyle Shurmur in the pocket for third-and-longs all day. We were 2 of 14 on third down conversions. Small wonder. Amazingly, we converted more fourth downs than third downs in this game. We averaged 2.8 yards per carry on the ground. If Coach Mason wanted a smashmouth football game, he needed a plan once his team got punched in the face. We froze – sticking to the runs between the hashes and pocket passing that did not work from the beginning.
Shurmur and the o-line had a rough outing. Shurmur was 18 of 38 (a rare trip below 50%) with 180 yards and one INT along with a TD. He was off target for the first time this year. The rain and SC’s d-line (that genuinely terrorized our o-line) contributed to his inaccuracy. It did not help that Shurmur seemed to be fielding grounders and flutterballs on snaps for much of the rain-hampered afternoon. We gained only 284 yards on offense. Carolina always knew what was coming. Even a few early jetsweeps or tosses to backs might have forced SC to spread itself a little – but we stuck to our plan long after it was doomed. While it is easy to lay the blame on our O-line for being slapped silly – it is, again, much harder to block when the other team knows the play in advance.
South Carolina deserved to win. Yet I could not shake the feeling that if we had been running their creative plays, and they had been running our obvious ones – the result might have been different.
While the overall effect of this effort was decidedly disheartening, the game was not without bright spots. Punter Parker Thome continues to impress – and coverage kept SC’s dangerous returners in check. Special teams are improved. We won the turnover fight 3-2 – and Dare Odeyingbo recorded both an INT and a fumble recovery. The 9 turnovers we have forced through four games now equals the total number of turnovers recorded in all of 2017. We also had a video review victory for a butt-TD on a nice catch by Kalijah Lipscomb, originally called out of bounds.
Perhaps brightest of all for wound-licking purposes was the spirited second quarter revival that left the game close at half-time. Having staked SC to a 10-0 lead in our traditional first quarter offensive trance, we fought back to 17-14 and had the ball with two minutes left in the half. All we needed was one first down. But after two runs and an incomplete throw under siege on third and long (to stop the clock), SC got the ball near mid-field with a minute left. The Gamecocks converted a field goal and never looked back.
In retrospect, the Gamecocks presented our defense with its two biggest challenges – the hurry-up and a big back, Rico Dowdle, who carried defenders for extra yards all day. He ended up gaining 112 yards. But if we tried to clamp down on him – there were Smith, Samuel, and Edwards to worry about. Ladarius Wiley had ten tackles while Jordan Griffin added nine. Dimitri Moore and Josh Smith added eight apiece. Joejuan Williams did a good job on Edwards. While the defense was largely just out-played, the schematic breakdowns with safeties reappeared. Several times when South Carolina had receivers streaking down both sidelines our deep safety was standing in the middle of the field twenty yards from anyone. So we were playing 10 on 11 – one of these plays produced a 50-yard bomb to Shi Smith.
Overall, the defense competed – and got beat. The offense simply did not compete. At least, we stopped ourselves as much as Carolina did.
We have to learn from this game. We cannot run the ball down the throat of good SEC d-lines. We have to go with misdirection, deception and plays to take heat off the pocket – like tosses to backs and roll-outs.
Coach Mason has a dream of making us the Stanford of the SEC – but at some point the reality that this won’t work against SEC defenses simply needs to set in. Reality shows that his record in SEC games is 6-27. Ultimately the legacy of the Mason era is that every time there is a glimmer of hope that we are turning the corner, Coach Mason doubles down on playing smashmouth-between-the-hashes offense. He needs to be smart enough – and realistic enough – when he is losing the brawl, to have a plan for winning a chess match. Will Muschamp won both the fight and the chess match last Saturday.
Hopefully, we will see signs of a little more creativity on offense next week versus Tennessee State. Georgia looms the following week – and they steamrolled Carolina. Whether we work on perfecting dives up the middle – or jet sweeps, wide receiver screens and tosses to backs – against TSU will be revealing.
This offense clearly has the talent to succeed. Kalijah Lipscomb, Jared Pinkney, Ke’Shawn Vaughn and Kyle Shurmur are playmakers. But we need to do what succeeds – like Carolina did to us – not what Stanford did against porous defenses twenty years ago.
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