Scott Davis: The calm before the storm
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.
The skies over Williams-Brice Stadium told the story.
If you glanced beyond the upper deck lights on Thursday night as the South Carolina Gamecocks got together with South Carolina State for a quick-turnaround midweek matchup, you knew all you needed to know about where the weather would soon be headed.
The flags near the top rows were stiff amidst swirling, 30-mph breezes and dark purple clouds. And the 66-degree temperatures at kickoff made it difficult to believe this football game was taking place in Columbia in September.
Was this really Williams-Brice we were seeing on our television screens? Those of us who have attended South Carolina games for years are accustomed to encountering a steamy sweatshop any time we enter the old ballpark at George Rogers Boulevard before the end of October.
But this actually looked like a perfect evening for watching a game – cool, crisp, good, old-fashioned football weather. “Man, you could make a postcard out of that,” enthused the SEC Network’s Dave Neal, as the cameras panned across the Columbia skyline at sunset.
As ideal as the conditions may have been for Thursday evening football viewing, there was just enough ominous energy floating in those skies for us to gain a foreshadowing of what was to come. Within hours, rains and howling winds would descend on the Palmetto State, spinning out from Hurricane Ian and settling above the Southeast for the weekend.
The game itself – abruptly pushed forward to Thursday from its original slot on Saturday as the weather forecast worsened this week – represented our last few moments of calm before the storm.
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And for the Gamecocks, back-to-back contests against Charlotte and SC State offered the final easygoing tune-up before the Category 5 winds of SEC play blow onto the schedule. Up next? Number 7 Kentucky, on the road in Lexington, followed by South Carolina killers Texas A&M. That’s enough to make me want to board up my windows.
Things are about to get very rugged, very quickly.
And we won’t be able to call in FEMA if there’s a football emergency.
On Thursday night, no panicky calls to FEMA or anyone else were necessary. The Gamecocks shook off an occasionally sluggish first half to ease into the win column with a 50-10 victory that largely looked like it was attained by a team coming off a chaotic, short week of practice.
This was probably not a game anyone will want to cue up on the DVR anytime soon, or perhaps ever. While there have been legendary Thursday nights inside the confines of Williams-Brice over the years, South Carolina vs. SC State 2022 won’t join the likes of SC vs. Ole Miss 2009 in our Thursday Night Hall of Fame.
No, this was a sloppy, mistake-filled affair on both sides of the ball for both teams, complete with waves of penalty flags, turnovers, interminably dull stretches where the referees glanced at replay cameras for no apparent reason and other oddities. After the hastily arranged Thursday night kickoff arrived barely 48 hours following its rescheduling, it was almost inevitable that both squads would come out of the gates in a daze.
Ultimately it wouldn’t matter for South Carolina fans, as the Gamecocks did enough to take care of business and put themselves above .500 with a gruesome SEC stretch looming. The good guys are 3-2 after five games – precisely where most of us expected they’d be at this point in the season.
Now comes the hard part.
There will be no more calm evenings under the lights the rest of the way. It’s nothing but gale-force winds and pelting rain.
And it’s time to see if this team is ready to weather the storm.
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The MarShawn Lloyd Game Balls of the Week
MarShawn Lloyd didn’t get a ton of touches on Thursday night, but he looks like the best player in garnet and black right now on either side of the ball, and once the Game Balls are named after you in this column, you hang on to the honor unless someone else does something to unseat you. Let’s toss a few Balls to..
MarShawn Lloyd – He ran with violent authority for the second week in a row when he had the opportunity to pound the ball and added another two touchdowns to his stats for the 2022 season. At this point, it’s probably not a secret that the Gamecock offense will need everything Lloyd has to offer from here on out. If all that wasn’t enough, the Gamecocks even recovered a Lloyd fumble to maintain possession in the fourth quarter and keep his evening pristine.
Spreading the Love – The South Carolina passing attack remains a work in progress, and though quarterback Spencer Rattler took advantage of a few opportunities to sling the ball downfield against an overmatched State secondary, the Gamecocks largely stuck to short passes that almost worked like rushing plays through the air. It may not have been electrifying to watch, but it was efficient in keeping the chains moving, and more importantly, it gave a large number of South Carolina receivers and tight ends an opportunity to finally get involved in the offense. I’ll admit to still not having much of a feel for who this Gamecock offense is after five games, but I do know they’ll need each and every one of their weapons in the passing game the rest of the way.
Turnovers and More Turnovers – The Gamecock defense had to overcome its own struggles with sloppiness, penalties and the occasional missed tackle, but the good news is that when they needed to force a turnover to hand the keys back to the offense, they often delivered, coming up with three interceptions on the night. It didn’t hurt that the SC State offense seemed wildly unenthused about protecting the football for all four quarters of this game.
Thursday Nights Returning to Williams-Brice – As I wrote in my weekly newsletter a few days ago, South Carolina fans turned Thursday Night Football into an art form during the Steve Spurrier Era, with the student section in particular being transformed into a psychotic animal house for those games. Regardless of how it came to happen, the return of Thursday football to Columbia brought back a lot of fond memories for Gamecock fans this week. In a burst of nostalgia, I even fired up the grill and cooked a pork tenderloin for the occasion, falling right back into my 2009 tailgating form as though I’d never lost it. All hail Thursday football.
Aaron Murray Asking “Why Are We Even Looking at This?” as an Unnecessary Review of MarShawn Lloyd’s First Touchdown Stretched Into Infinity – Like many football fans, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated during the last few years as the pace of play has slowed to a leisurely shuffle, with seemingly every series now being followed by the refereeing crew huddling beneath a tented camera to scan the replay for endless minutes. The end result has been football games that last nearly four hours just about every week.
I’m all for getting the calls right – it’s too important to everyone involved not to – and I passionately support replay review and will continue to. But some plays just don’t need agonizing, minutes-long reviews, and that was the case early in the game after South Carolina’s MarShawn Lloyd stretched the football past the pylon for a clear touchdown. As the officials looked at the play – and looked at it, and looked at it, with absolutely nothing on the replay indicating any reason to overturn the call – the SEC Network’s Aaron Murray finally reached his breaking point, fuming about how unnecessary reviews were sending game times into the stratosphere. I was happy to hear someone on a broadcast speak the truth for a change. Let the kids play, for God’s sake.
Retro Helmets – The Gamecocks wore simple, old-school Block C helmets to honor the 1968 ACC Championship team. As an old person who is increasingly resembling an antique relic, I’m all for mixing in a vintage look from time to time.
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Deflated Balls, South Carolina-SC State
You’d think watching your football team win a game by 40 points would eliminate the need to hand out Deflated Balls, at least for one night. You would think.
Penalty Party – Both teams combined for a staggering 17 penalties on a night when it seemed like the referees were under the impression the viewing audience had tuned in to see them work. Each team had touchdowns negated by flags, and clearly the onset of sloppy weather inspired a sloppy evening for all parties.
Growing Pains on Defense – Where would this unit be without the devastating injuries? We’ll never know. Coach Shane Beamer referenced his young defensive squad in an SEC Network interview after the game. “We’ve got good players on defense,” Beamer said, with mild enthusiasm, while acknowledging that many true freshmen were logging large minutes for South Carolina’s defense because so many starters are missing. Unsurprisingly, the youngsters are sometimes making the kinds of mistakes that inexperienced players will make – their current fascination for accumulating pass interference penalties has resulted in many Gamecock fans talking to themselves during the last few games (and using four-letter words while doing so). I wouldn’t say that I feel waves of ecstasy surging through my body as I contemplate them squaring off against the offenses of Kentucky and Texas A&M in the weeks ahead, but here’s hoping the growth continues.
Identity Alert – After watching them for five weeks, I’m still not sure I know who this Gamecock offense wants to be when it grows up. I guess you can win games in the SEC without knowing who you are and how you want to conduct yourself from week to week, but I’d rather not try. We may have to.
In the end, the overall record is what it is…and it isn’t at all shocking. We’re where we thought we’d be after five games.
That means the real season starts now, and a whole host of stormy Saturdays await us.
Time to strap on the rain gear, brave the elements and be prepared to get down in the mud. Are we ready?
We’ll have to be.
We know what the weather forecast shows.
Tell me what you thought about the return of Thursday night football at Williams-Brice by writing me at [email protected].
