Gamecocks look to contain UK ground game
South Carolina’s defense faces a very basic issue Saturday when the Gamecocks visit Kentucky: Stopping, or at least slowing, running back Benny Snell.
Snell leads the Southeastern Conference in rushing with 540 yards with seven rushing touchdowns. His play has made the Wildcats the league’s leading rushing team with an average of 269 yards a game.
“Well you’ve got to swarm the ball field. That’s the bottom line,” Coach Will Muschamp said of his team’s approach to Snell. “When you play really good backs, they are going to make you miss. They are going to break some tackles.
“You’ve got to swarm the football. You’ve got to leverage the ball the right way. The ball carrier is never down until the whistle blows. You’ve got to finish on the ballcarrier, and you have to have the right mindset going into the game.
“And I think that’s something really important when you play a back like Snell, because he is a guy you’re going to have to gang-tackle to get on the ground.”
It will be up to the Gamecocks to win the “one-on-one” matchups against Kentucky’s ground game, which ran for 229 yards last week against a Mississippi State that had been holding foes to just 85 yards a game on the ground.
“At the end of the day, football is a game where you’re matched up against another person,” Muschamp said. “Sometimes you may have to face a double-team, but you have got to win your one-on-ones.
“We talk in terms of winning downs, which wins possessions, and if you win enough possessions, you win games. So, our approach never changes, as far as that is concerned.”
In addition to its rushing, Kentucky also has had success on third downs, converting over half (25) of their 48 third-down situations.
“They’re very efficient, because they manage for third down,” Muschamp said. “They make it very difficult for you to get off the field. They don’t give you a lot of negative plays on offense, so they’re not in a lot of bad down-and-distance situations.”
