South Carolina Football: Full game notes from Missouri loss

South Carolina Football vs. Missouri:
Other Notes

• For reasons unknown, the Gamecocks continue to play a safety at nickel. Freshman Jalon Kilgore got the assignment on Saturday, and he gave up an early touchdown to Luther Burden when safety DQ Smith missed on his over-the-top help.
  • The safety-playing-nickel in man coverage in the slot experiment continues to not work no matter how many different safeties Clayton White tries in the spot. Jalon Kilgore was better than the last few weeks of DQ Smith and Nick Emmanwori trying it, but it is still a horrible game plan that can’t work in the SEC.
• The defensive showing was pathetic, especially in the first half. Several guys gave almost no effort, the coaching gameplan was abysmal, no adjustments were made, and “soft” is a great descriptor for a handful of players wearing garnet and black.
  • The linebacker play in the first half was the worst of the year. However, Debo Williams had a good showing in the second half. It was far too little, far too late for the defense, though. Other than the second half by Williams, the linebacker play was not good all day.
  • The pass rush was non-existent. Bryan Thomas, Jr. and TJ Sanders got after the quarterback once, and Debo Williams got forgotten by the offensive line on two separate blitzes. Other than that, the Gamecocks did not affect Brady Cook as a passer at all.
• The offensive line was horrible most of the day. There was no push in the run game, and Spencer Rattler was running for his life on every dropback. Nick Gargiulo’s snaps were low most of the game, as well.
  • Tyshawn Wannamaker eventually replaced Sidney Fugar who was having the worst day of the bunch. Jakai Moore came in for a banged-up Tree Babalade, as well.
  • Other than a decent day from Mario Anderson that was carried by two big runs, the Gamecocks had 1 total rushing yard combined for the rest of the team. Most of the day, there was nowhere to run.
  • Carolina gave up 5 sacks, but three more were erased by Missouri penalties, and several more were narrowly avoided by Rattler making it back to the line of scrimmage.
• None of the Gamecocks on offense forced very many missed tackles. Mario Anderson, Ahmarean Brown, and Spencer Rattler shook a couple of players, but most of the time when a defender got near a Gamecock ball carrier, the play ended right there.
• Spencer Rattler was good again. His stats were tremendously affected by poor offensive line play and desperation throws at the end of the game.
• Missouri made a ton of mistakes in the second half. Otherwise, this game would have gone from embarrassing to downright demoralizing.