South Carolina Gamecocks Defeat UNC with Defense

Steve Spurrier and his South Carolina Gamecocks traveled to Charlotte to take on the North Carolina Tarheels, where they came up with a victory thanks to their defense. That’s right Carolina fans; you read that right! We won because of the great play of our defense.

Both the Gamecocks and Tar Heels struggled all game with offense, which showed in the final score, 17-13. Like South Carolina, North Carolina played a heck of a game on defense which at the end of the day should be a positive that both teams fans can take out of this game. Last year, the Gamecocks and Tar Heels could only wish to hold an offense to 10 or 17 points.

This was Connor Mitch’s first career start, and it showed throughout the game. Mitch started the first quarter 0-4 in passing, but ended up finishing the day 9/22, throwing 122 yards and racking up 1 TD to no other than Pharoh Cooper. All off-season we heard about Mitch’s running ability despite the fact that Mitch wasn’t known for his running at all coming out of high school. To my surprise, Mitch came out running the ball and showed great potential for getting out of pressure and gaining extra yards in future games.

Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports

The real reason the Gamecocks won this game is because of our defense. Last year we pretty much blamed them for every loss so it’s nice to see the improvement in tackling, defensive line play, and the secondary making big hits. The Gamecocks defense forced three turnovers, including two interceptions from the player of the game, Skai Moore. Jordan Diggs also had a interception, and we racked up three sacks, two coming from Kelsey Griffin.

Overall, we can come out of this game knowing the both sides of the ball still need practice and to fix up some things. On defense we still have some tackling problems, and the defensive line can’t be overpowered on run plays like North Carolina’s offensive line did. On offense we still need to find receivers who can be the next guy behind Cooper. All game it seemed like we couldn’t get open, and that we wouldn’t take chances down field.

Our quarterback play is still in the air if you ask me, Perry Orth came in and went 2-2 and looked good and composed since he was being blitzed on both passes. Mitch never really passed past the line of scrimmage so it’s hard to give a grade on his play but with his running ability and the fact he didn’t make any stupid plays other than the personal foul for taunting, you have to keep him as your guy until he starts making mistakes.

Next Saturday, September 12, 7:30 PM, the Gamecocks will come back home to Columbia to play the Kentucky Wildcats on the SEC Network.

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