South Carolina Football’s Defense:
The Horrible Moments
The Gamecock defense has been bad. However, they’ve been even worse when it matters most. If “clutch defense” was a quantifiable stat in college football, USC would rank near the bottom in the college football world.
For example, just this past week against Florida, South Carolina gave up three 4th down conversions to the Gators on UF’s final two touchdown drives, including a 4th-and-10 and a 4th-and-11. On the 4th and 11, a blitzing defensive back had a free run at quarterback Graham Mertz. Instead of sacking the Gator QB and sealing the game, he fell down, and Florida converted. On the 4th-and-10, the Gamecocks had a chance to tackle the receiver behind the line of scrimmage but whiffed and gave up the conversion.
Also in the Florida game, right before the half, the Gators picked up a field goal with a drive that took less than 1 1/2 minutes. Those 3 points were huge in a close game.
Against Mississippi State, the defense gave up over 550 yards of offense. Almost half of those yards came on 7 Tulu Griffin catches. Four of the longest catches from Griffin flipped momentum momentarily as they immediately followed a Carolina score and set up a Bulldog answer (one catch was the drive’s scoring play).
Against both North Carolina and Georgia, when the games were still very much competitive, the Gamecock defense had 13 men on the field at the goal line but still surrendered a touchdown run in each situation as almost no one wearing garnet and black was ready at the snap.