Scott Davis: Restoring order under the lights
Scott Davis has followed the South Carolina football program for more than 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective each Monday during the season. Scott also writes a weekly newsletter that’s emailed each Friday; sign up here to receive it.
We needed this.
We needed it a little more than we all wanted to admit after this past week.
We needed a laugher. We needed a runaway. We needed a win that wasn’t one of those lackluster victories against an overmatched opponent where the media is asking questions after the game like, “Coach, I know you’re happy to get back in the W column, but what do you have to do to get this offense on track the rest of the year?”
We needed to restore order in this chaotic 2022 season and shake it into something like life.
After enduring two straight punishing defeats delivered by upper-echelon SEC opponents, and after a ho-hum win in Game One against Georgia State that relied upon blocked punts, fake field goals and other assorted wackiness, the South Carolina Gamecocks needed to stand toe-to-toe against a lesser team and land a firm uppercut to the jaw.
It took a little longer to unfold than maybe we would have hoped, but that uppercut finally connected.
And when it did, it was the knockout punch we’d been waiting so long to see.
The 2022 campaign was just three games old as kickoff approached, and yet it somehow seemed like the Gamecocks and their fans were already drifting ominously towards Wait ‘Til Next Year mode – never a place you want to be under any circumstances, but certainly not with nine games left in a season.
Whatever momentum that still lingered around the program following the Offseason of Hope had evaporated into vapor after the Georgia Bulldogs thoroughly humbled Shane Beamer’s team inside Williams-Brice Stadium last week. Never had a two-game losing streak felt quite so depressing and devoid of positive storylines. As for that Duke’s Mayo Bowl win to close the 2021 season? It was already sliding under the horizon like a blood-red sunset.
There were other frustrating moments over the last few days, too. “Get off the field”-gate briefly tried to take on a life of its own in the national media before everyone looked around and said to each other, “Making a big deal of this is silly, right?” And there was Coach Beamer’s statement about being 10-2 in the fourth quarter over the last dozen games, which led to a Barstool Sports headline this week that read, “Proof South Carolina Football is a Joke.”
In short, we needed something to smile about.
And it needed to be something worthy of emphatic, unequivocal smiling, “Heath Ledger as the Joker” smiling – not one of those “hey, I’m glad we got the win and all, but my goodness…” victories that end up provoking nearly as many questions as answers amongst the fan base. A 56-20 win like the one South Carolina notched against Charlotte is just such a worthy one.
Sure, I hear you. This was the Charlotte 49ers. They entered the game at 1-3. The university didn’t even field a football program until 2013. And for much of the first half, they threw the ball up, down and around the Williams-Brice turf, successfully enough to hold a 14-10 lead with most of the first two quarters in the books.
Still, in my many decades as a South Carolina fan, I’ve often watched the Gamecocks conduct themselves in the most frustrating manner possible when playing a team with lesser talent. Instead of just dropping the hammer on a foe that is outmatched and undermanned, South Carolina often seems to be working out the kinks or trying new wrinkles against the likes of Wofford or Louisiana Tech or whoever else they should be able to handle with relative ease, declining to just punch their smaller and slower opponents in the face and pounding them into submission.
There have been many, many nights I’ve sat inside Williams-Brice during similar games against similar teams and thought, “For God’s sake, carry yourself like an SEC team.”
For much of the season since that Georgia State game, the Gamecock coaching staff kept talking about simplifying the offense.
Saturday night, things got very simple indeed. The game plan: Run the ball directly at Charlotte’s defense until they could show a single sign of stopping it from happening.
The Niners could not, and eventually South Carolina went on a 32-0 run that provided exactly the kind of performance I’ve always hoped to see from the Gamecocks against also-ran, mid-tier nonconference teams.
It was brutal. It was lethal. It was efficient.
And when it was over, this South Carolina football team looked like a unit with some genuine confidence for the first time in 2022.
The rest of us finally got a chance to smile. And breathe.
Texas A&M and Tennessee and Florida will be here soon enough.
The MarShawn Lloyd Game Balls of the Week
My dear wife’s birthday is the week, and I knew going into Saturday night’s game that it would take a historic, magical performance by someone in a Gamecock uniform to keep her from having the esteemed Game Balls named after her in this column. Honey, wait ‘til next year. Let’s pass a round of Balls to…
MarShawn Lloyd – Lloyd’s arrival on campus a few years ago was one of the most anticipated of any recruit’s arrival to the program in recent years, providing Gamecock fans with hope that the team might finally have a running back worthy of the rich rushing legacy from the Spurrier years (Lattimore, Wilds, Davis). But injuries kept Lloyd from ever fully getting the opportunity to show his talents, and his time in Columbia coincided with coaching changes and a cycle of shifting offensive philosophies. It didn’t help his cause in 2022 that the Gamecocks were often playing from behind, limiting the team’s ability to get into a rhythm in the running game.
None of it mattered Saturday night, when Lloyd ran wild for 169 yards and three touchdowns at a staggering 11.3-yards-per-carry clip – plus a SportsCenter moment when he leapfrogged a Charlotte defender en route to a score. In fact, let’s keep Balling out by dropping some recognition on…
The Entire South Carolina Rushing Attack – As astonishing as Lloyd’s output was, his teammates in the running back room performed nearly as well. The team as a whole put nearly 300 rushing yards in the stat sheet, with Christian Beal-Smith averaging more than six yards per carry in his own right. Sometimes the right thing to do against a team with lesser talent is to simply steamroll over them and make them look like the slower, smaller opponent they actually are. Mission accomplished.
Interceptions – The Gamecock secondary picked off Charlotte a few times and had good looks at a couple of other interceptions on a night when the 49ers offense briefly appeared poised to stockpile passing yardage.
Williams-Brice Under the Lights – I’m just going to come right out and admit it: I wasn’t expecting a ton from the Gamecock faithful Saturday night. Two straight ugly losses, plus that weird thing where fans start to quickly distance themselves from their team after they’ve allowed themselves to get their hopes up (like we did this offseason), then had those hopes dashed. On top of all that, the Charlotte 49ers weren’t exactly the type of opponent that jolts a sleepy fan base awake. I figured there’d be some empty sections and a quiet student section. Instead, I flipped on ESPNU at 7:30 and found a raucous, towel-waving throng that looked and sounded like the type of intimidating SEC environment that Gamecock fans are known for providing. I’m always proud to be a part of this fan base when I gaze upon a scene like that. God bless y’all.
Deflated Balls, Gamecock football vs Charlotte
Was this a perfect evening? Friends, it was not!
Let’s hand out a few Deflated Balls to the following…
Third Down Nightmares – Charlotte’s offense came into the game averaging a 33% success rate on third downs. The Niners then proceeded to make good on their first seven third-down opportunities against the Gamecock defense along the way to two first-half touchdowns that briefly gave Charlotte the lead. Many of those third downs were 10 yards or longer, making for a genuinely uncomfortable viewing experience for the first hour of this football game. South Carolina’s depleted and bruised defense has been struggling to get off the field on third down for most of the 2022 season, and nothing that happened in the first half Saturday night will make us feel more hopeful going forward. While we’re here…
“Pass Interference…On the Defense…” – I kept hearing it all night, leading to me dreaming early Sunday morning about an evil, ghostly refereeing crew who kept murmuring this statement at me while pouring dirt over me as I lie in an unmarked grave. The Gamecocks picked up four of these penalties during the game and probably could have been flagged for more had the referees wanted to inspire a riot in the Williams-Brice stands. Worse, Gamecock defenders kept emerging from these tussles by turning towards the referees with upraised hands, as though daring them to call a penalty (which the zebras were all to happy to do). Definitely not good for my blood pressure.
ESPNU’s Strange Obsession with the Charlotte 49ers Program – The Niners entered this football game at 1-3, having finally gotten into the win column last weekend against Georgia State. Admittedly, the return of Charlotte’s starting quarterback Chris Reynolds seemed to have rejuvenated the team, and Reynolds baffled the Gamecock pass rush and secondary for much of the first half.
Still, the ESPNU announcing crew of Jay Alter and Forrest Conoly seemed to find Reynolds’ return to be the most heartwarming story in college football in 2022. Alter repeatedly rhapsodized about Reynolds’ “arriving in Charlotte as the seventh-string quarterback, eventually becoming a three-time captain!!!!” as though the quarterback resembled Tom Brady being passed over until the sixth round in the NFL Draft only to become the game’s greatest player of all-time. By the middle of the third quarter, Reynolds had been sacked into oblivion, then benched when the game was out of reach.
Later, Alter seemed flustered by Spencer Rattler being “reduced to being a game manager,” leading to an excruciating stretch where he and Conoly debated one another about the handling of Rattler during the game. I knew things had gotten bad when I started getting text messages from family members saying things like, “How bad is this announcing team?” followed by my sweet wife suddenly blurting, “Mute this broadcast right now!” When I chuckled, she glared at me and said, “I was being serious!” Tough night for the U. But they sure did love…
Charlotte Head Coach Will Healy’s “Ted Lasso Impression” – Alter told the viewing audience roughly 6,000 times that 49er coach Will Healy has often been compared to the lovable Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis’s character from the wildly successful Apple TV show. Then the U’s cameras kept panning over to the Charlotte sideline, where Healy was inevitably clapping vigorously, screaming encouragements and in general conducting himself like the world’s happiest rabid dog. I had tired of Healy’s antics by the middle of the first quarter. By game’s end, I was having to count to 10 every time the camera rolled past him. Look, I’ve often lauded Shane Beamer’s pumped-up sideline demeanor in this column, and it has been a refreshing change from the grim, schoolmaster stoicism of the Will Muschamp Era. But there’s a fine line between enthusiasm and whatever it was that Healy was doing Saturday night. I’m just glad it’s over.
Speaking of over, the good feelings from this ballgame won’t last long if South Carolina follows it up with a lackluster performance this coming week against a South Carolina State team that is ripe to be steamrolled in exactly the same manner Charlotte just was.
Let’s feel free to pound them directly into the ground.
Tell me how you’re feeling now that four games are in the books by writing me at [email protected].
