Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

September 18, 2018 at 11:11 pm.

Gamecocks look to get back to run game

Circumstances dictated that South Carolina pretty much abandon its running game and go to the pass in the second half of the loss to Georgia, but look for the Gamecocks to get back to the basic against Vanderbilt Saturday in their first road test of the season.

The Gamecocks (1-1) ran the ball only 20 times in the 41-17 loss to the Bulldogs with only six of those attempts coming over the final two quarters.

The reason for that was simple enough. The Gamecocks trailed 27-10 when they got the ball for the first time in the third quarter and 34-10 soon after that, which pretty much meant going to the passing game to try to catch up.

Junior quarterback Jake Bentley ending up throwing a career-high 47 times.

The busiest running back was Rico Dowdle with seven carries for 18 yards. Ty’Son Williams ran six times for 26, and A.J. Turner three yards on one rush. Bentley had four rushes for 10 yards, wide receiver Deebo Samuel one for a loss of a yard.

Coach Will Muschamp said afterward that he had needed to be more hardheaded in sticking to the running game, but he isn’t putting all the onus on the running backs to boost the running game and offense in general.

“You’re going to have to win some one-on-ones,” he said. “We talk to our players all the time about that. I’m not just talking about the running back position. Whether it’s our receivers outside on the cornerback or a linebacker covering you’ve got to win some one-on-ones.

“You play against good people that’s what you’ve got to do. There are going to be some one-on-one situations where you’ve got to make a guy miss or run through a tackle or run through contact.”

The Gamecocks have had to wait an extra week to see how that will work its way since last week’s game against Marshall was canceled because of the threat of Hurricane Florence in the state.

Muschamp said he and his staff treated it like a normal open week.

“We’ve done a lot of good-on-good work, as much as we could and also getting ready for a very good Vanderbilt team,” Muschamp said. “So we’ve got in a lot of fast-ball work so I feel very comfortable about that preparation.”

The game at Vanderbilt will be the first of back-to-back SEC road games for the Gamecocks. They are at Kentucky the next week to close out the month and then are back home against Missouri on Oct. 6.

ALL  |  NFL  |  College Football  |  MLB  |  NBA