Garnet and Cocky will start doing a weekly mailbag on all things South Carolina football.
South Carolina football will take on the Vanderbilt Commodores this weekend in Nashville. The Gamecocks are looking for their 10th straight win against Vanderbilt.
The weekly mailbag will take all of the readers’ questions from Twitter, Facebook, or the site’s comments section. Please feel free to send in your questions at any time and hopefully they will appear in the mailbag.
Since this is a new feature at Garnet and Cocky for the 2018 South Carolina football season, we did not have a ton of feedback, but we did get a question.
What do you see as the key to a #Gamecocks victory this weekend?!?!
— RZart (@Cholie322) September 20, 2018
Our question comes from @Cholie322 who asks: “What do you see as the key to a #Gamecocks victory this weekend?!?!”
First, thank you for the question, it is an excellent one. Personally I feel that the key to a victory for South Carolina football on Saturday is a solid run game and great defense.
South Carolina running back Rico Dowdle had a great first game against Coastal Carolina. He rushed for 105 yards and a touchdown. However against Georgia, he struggled mightily. He only carried the ball 7 times for 18 yards.
It would behoove the Gamecocks to get Dowdle involved early and often. Getting him a lot of carries early in the game should open up the passing game for South Carolina quarterback Jake Bentley.
Defensively, the Gamecocks must shut down Vanderbilt quarterback Kyle Shurmur. He is what makes the offense go. He has thrown for over 750 yards and 5 touchdowns so far this season. His experience and accuracy allows the Vanderbilt offense to be successful.
If South Carolina football can get their ground game going, and play great defense, they should have a great chance of beating Vanderbilt this weekend.
Please continue to send in your question for the rest of the season and we will add them into upcoming mailbags.