Many South Carolina football fans wondered what would happen on Saturday when the Gamecocks took the field against Akron without starting quarterback LaNorris Sellers. No one was particularly concerned about the possibility of USC losing to the Zips, but there was some trepidation among the garnet and black faithful about how competently the offense would play.
As it turned out, backup quarterback Robby Ashford answered the call and had a good performance en route to the Gamecocks picking up a 50-7 victory and moving to 3-1 on the season, the first time Carolina has reached that win-loss record since 2017.
Things weren't perfect for South Carolina on Saturday, and head coach Shane Beamer expressed some major frustration with his team during a halftime interview. However, the Gamecock defense was very good outside of a long Akron touchdown, and the offense had some good moments (though, not quite as many as one might expect in a game with 50 points).
The Gamecocks had a decent start to the game with 15 points in the 1st quarter, but things slowed down in the 2nd and 3rd (the Gamecocks outscored Akron just 14-7 in the middle periods) before a big 4th quarter.
Even without playing much in the latter portions of the game, Ashford finished 15-21 on his passing attempts and over 360 combined yards passing and rushing. Four other Gamecocks logged at least 25 yards on the ground as the team rushed for 273 yards on the day.
Starting running back Rocket Sanders was lost to an ankle injury on the game's second drive, but after the game, Beamer said he didn't believe the ailment would be long-term.
All-in-all, Beamer and Gamecock fans alike were encouraged by the performance against Akron. Despite playing a back-up quarterback and having a far-less-than-perfect team performance, South Carolina football beat another FBS team 50-7 and got plenty of young players some valuable experience.