South Carolina Pulls Switcheroo on Kentucky Defense
As a part of my job as a professional journalist, it’s my job to explain to you the complexities of the sport of football. Some might call me a Football Frank. Today I’m here to share with you a very important piece of football terminology that South Carolina is implementing on the Kentucky Wildcats, the ‘ol switcheroo.
That’s why they call Shane Beamer ‘Mr. November.’ Just when you thought you had the Gamecocks figured out, they do the switcheroo.
What exactly is it? A fun way to say that South Carolina completely changed the way the play defense in the tenth game of the season.
Instead of using this Football Frank’s phrase, head coach Mark Stoops described it as “some changeups.”
“Defensively, [South Carolina] made a few changes this past week. It will be interesting to see which direction they will go schematically,” the head coach said Monday morning.
Offensive coordinator Liam Coen saw a shift in confidence from the Gamecock defense following the switcheroo. What exactly did they change?
“They had been a four-down, cover-4, 3-deep, mixed in with some man coverage. Then last week against Vanderbilt they sort of shifted to almost a little bit of a Mississippi State vibe where they had three high safeties, three down-linemen, played a little more coverage, which I think caught Vanderbilt by surprise,” Coen said Tuesday evening. “I don’t think they were quite ready for that, which I completely understand, so that’s something that we’ve had to prepare for.”
The baffled Commodores could only muster 104 passing yards and six points in a much-needed blowout win for South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium. The Gamecocks still have one of the SEC’s worst scoring defenses, allowing on average 28.6 points and 413.6 yards per game. They’ve lost the element of surprise, but the drastic change in defensive style might be just what the Gamecocks needed. Kentucky must prepare for both looks ahead of Saturday night’s game.
“It’s a little annoying,” said Coen. “I’m sure that’s part of the goal too, obviously to be better on their side of the ball and create some different mismatches and coverages and leverages, maybe get different guys on the field for them.
“For us, now you don’t truly know what to prepare for. I think we have an idea — we’ll probably get a mix of a lot of things — but it’s just something we had to prepare for that we weren’t looking forward to preparing for. It’s something else we have to be aware of, our players have to be aware of and us as a staff have to have a plan.”
Will the plan work? We’ll find out Saturday night at 7:30 pm EST on the SEC Network.
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