Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Game Cox, the football team becomes ranked and bowl eligible, and both basketball teams have a nice weekend. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:54] Okay.
[00:00:56] Welcome to episode 273 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And waking up today, it sure feels great to be a Gamecock. I mean, really just a fantastic, top tier, elite weekend to be a University of South Carolina Gamecock fan. And this is what it's all about. You know, I've talked about this before, but, you know, this is when being the sports fanatics that we are really just feels so good. You know, when you can look around, and this is a special time of year, too, because you can look around in multiple sports and multiple different areas, and you're seeing wins and you're seeing things coming together, and then in one hand, you're accomplishing things that you didn't think were maybe necessarily going to happen this year. And you have people talking nationally about your program, and it's just very exciting. You know, incredibly grateful, incredibly proud of all of our teams here, but, man, yeah, it was absolutely a fun weekend and going to dive into it all. Let's get this thing rolling here because we got a lot to cover here. So we're going to do a quick weekend recap and then we'll look at basketball and then football here. So starting out on Friday, we had women's volleyball, unfortunately, take the loss to Arkansas, three nothing. Also on Friday, we had swimming and diving in action. That's right. And got it going here against Queens. The women won 196 to 63. That seems like a butt kicking. And then the men also with a nice showing, winning 165 to 96. So shout out to our swimming and diving team. Great weekend there. And then skipping ahead to Sunday, women's volleyball. Tough weekend. Tough weekend for women's volleyball here. They took the L to Missouri, also, three nothing. That's all right, girls. Keep your chins up. And then we had men's soccer. They lost to Kentucky one to nothing. And then women's soccer. Really cool story from the weekend. They made it to the SEC championship game. A great run, a great showing from them. Unfortunately, a late goal from Texas was the difference maker as they go down one nothing. But huge, huge shout out to the women's soccer team and congratulations. That is a fantastic run to the SEC championship game. And they will await their fate for the NCAA tournament. But really big time shout out there and Then, all right, so looking at the hardwood here, the QZIPs, we're back to calling them the QZIPs here because they're back in our good graces. You see they were in action on Friday, second game of the year, if you remember. They needed a big time bounce back showing and that's what they did. They played SC State and won 86 to 64. The team just looked better across the board. They just looked better, better offensively, better defensively. Jacoby Wright had himself a nice game. So I think that first game, while it is disappointing and really that shouldn't have happened, was a case of new faces, guys playing, you know, new starts in the lineup, Lamont tinkering with lineups and things like that. And then hopefully this second game here is a sign of things to come. And you know, as they play together more, get more comfortable and things like that, but that's a big time showing there. And then side note, North Florida, who took down the GameCocks in the first game so far this season has actually seemed pretty good. You know, they held their own against Georgia Tech as well. So maybe that team is a little bit better than we gave them credit for initially.
[00:05:01] And then on Sunday here we had the women's basketball team, they were in action in the Ally tip off up in Charlotte and they went up against NC State. So you have this just like years past. Don Staley and team have scheduled Power 5, Power 4 competition early in the year and really I think with the idea to have that pay dividends later in the year that you challenge yourself right out of the gate. And Don Staley did talk about that. But the ladies did get the W71 to 57. But this was a close game. This was a hard fought game. NC State did not go down quietly, especially late in the game. This really was a defensive grind it out type of game. And Don Staley talked about that, how it was a challenging game, they had to dig deep, they had to find different ways to win. And so far we're two games into this thing. The ladies are 2 0. They are where you'd expect them to be, which is, you know, you never want to take it for granted, but I do think we're seeing that this team is going to have to win differently than last year. I really do think missing Camila Cardozo is a big, big absence and a big gap for this team. At least right now. You know, she was a difference maker. You know, you would play these good teams. North Carolina State, Notre Dame's, Iowa like, and they just didn't have someone who was physically as big and as dominant as that.
[00:06:39] So when you're missing that presence, you're going to have to look elsewhere to find that. And, you know, it may result in some harder games, especially early on. And when we get into league play too. So we'll be interesting to see, right? Like we have a veteran led team. Does someone take that next evolution in their game? Is there a young player who steps up and fills that void as well? So nice W, Big W. I like a team that can grind it out defensively, right? So shout out Don Staley. Shout out both basketball teams. And it was a nice sandwich Friday and Sunday because Saturday we had the football team in action and they are the ones grabbing all the headlines right now because they went up to Nashville and pretty much did what no other team so far this year in the SEC was able to do. Went up to Vandy and beat the Commodores to the tune of 28 to 7. They made Diego Pavia look pedestrian and they made Vanderbilt look like Vanderbilt, frankly. And as the football team's social media put out, that winning streak continues. There was a nice little troll job there, but this was a great, great win. And I don't even know where to start with this, but we'll start sort of with the end with now we have our Carolina GameCocks sitting at 6 wins and are bowl eligible. Bowl eligible with 3 games to go in my season prediction, I didn't even have that. I don't think many pundits had that. Some folks, you know, were thinking this team had bowl eligibility, but it might be right at the end. Whatever.
[00:08:21] Fantastic. Fantastic. I think it was the first team since 2011, I want to say, to have three SEC road games yet. Oklahoma, Kentucky and now Vanderbilt. So this team is just continuing to play with a belief, with the confidence and with chemistry. And it really does feel like everyone has settled in and everyone is in a really good groove now offensively and defensively.
[00:08:55] So to set the stage here, you know, obviously South Carolina went up to Nashville after that big win against A and M and the question was, can they keep this up? Can they avoid the letdown game against a team that is really playing well in Vanderbilt? And you kind of felt right away that this team was coming out with the intensity. They had a good opening drive. Unfortunately, Alex Herrera did miss that kick. Got to find a way to tighten up the screws there. You know, that was not this far kick. That is something that you got to make. I understand it Was rainy and everything like that, but nonetheless, got to find a way to fine tune that because that's sort of the last piece of the puzzle that's missing here. But you were able to move the ball on them defensively after Lenorris fumbled the ball. Kyle Kennard gets it right back for us. And that's what I've said before about this defense, is that they can erase mistakes. Where you have that red shirt freshman quarterback who is growing and who is developing, there might be some growing pains there, but when you have this veteran defense that's playing, playing so, so well, they can make up for that. And then to only hold the Commodores to seven points is just phenomenal. You know, like that's something that these teams that they've played just really, frankly haven't been able to do.
[00:10:20] And don't get it twisted, Vanderbilt is a good, disciplined team. And so when we look at the defensive effort here, they were able to contain Diego Pavia. They limited their strengths very effectively.
[00:10:39] Our defensive line is an absolute powerhouse. And even later in the game, you saw some other guys get in, not maybe, not maybe quite reserves, but someone like Brian Thomas Jr. Getting some more action and he was making plays. So this team and this defense is still so, so deep. Like, yes, the Dylan Stewarts and the Kyle Kennards and the Nicki Min worries of the world, they get a lot of love and rightfully so. But there are other dudes on this team. I believe it was Peyton Williams played safety this game because dq. I think he tweaked something when he was warming up. So you had a guy who played sparingly up to this point in the year go in there and play the whole game and played very, very well. So that's a testament to the coaching and the recruiting that is on that side of the ball. But only giving up seven points, just an absolute dominating performance. I said it going into the game that Vanderbilt played all of their SEC teams close, right? Like all of their games in The SEC were one possession or maybe 10 points, it was 10 points or less. So they weren't necessarily lighting people up. And so what South Carolina did was we played our game. Vanderbilt was playing theirs in the sense of just trying to grind it out, get those first downs, trying to own the time of possession, but we simply weren't letting them have that. And even when they did have some of those extended drives, you kept them out of the end zone. And so when you're able to score and they're playing their game, which is oh we're going to play you close. Once you build that lead of 14, 21 points, it's going to be a little harder for them to play catch up because that's just not in their nature. You know what I mean? So defensively, a very good effort. You saw every level playing especially well. D Knight is just looking so, so good. Him and Debo are a fantastic combo. And then offensively, you know, was sitting there watching this and it's really just Dowel Loggins is playing the hits. And this is what I mean, where I think everybody has sort of settled in. I think Dowel Loggins, maybe over the bye week sat down and said, okay, like, what do we really have here on offense? Well, we have a really good veteran running back. We have a really good athletic and dynamic tight end, Josh diamond. And we have a quarterback who's mobile and he's strong and he's pretty good, pretty good at throwing the ball, I must say. So I think he just said, this is what we're going to do. We're just going to play the hits. Because this game once again ran through Rocket Sanders, Lenore Sellers and Josh Simon. Rocket, 126 yards on the ground, back to back. Fantastic performances from him. Two touchdowns as well. And that doesn't include the 52 yards he had receiving that really long screen pass, catch and run and the touchdown as well. So you're playing through your star players, getting the ball in your playmaker's hands. It's something that we've talked about for years, going back to other offensive coordinators.
[00:14:00] Sometimes football can be that simple. Just get the ball to your best players and good things tend to happen. Josh Simon, of course, with that really nice touchdown pass. That was a beautiful throw by Lenorris. You watch the replay, he sees that he was open right away. He kind of looked the one guy off really quickly, gave it to Josh. Touchdown there. You had three catches from him. And so I went into this game saying I'd like to see a wide receiver step up right, someone to take that burden away from Josh Simon. Ray, where he doesn't have to be that top pass catcher. And you did have Gage Larva Dane and Nick harbor tie Josh in catches they both had. Everybody had three catches there. But I think what's happening is that's the formula. You're going to have Rocket, you're going to lean on him in the run game. Josh Simon is your go to target. He's a matchup nightmare. Lenoris is going to do his thing, running the ball Scrambling, but you're going to try and get him on the run a little bit to set up those passes and then you're going to sprinkle in a wide receiver, whether that's Gage Larva, Dane, Nick Harbor, Mazio Bennett, Jared Brown. So it's going to be sort of the flavor of the week from the wide receivers, like who can give you three, four, five catches. I mean, of course I'd like to see them with four or five or six catches a game, but if you're able to run the ball so many times and you don't have to have Lenoris throw it a lot, then there's simply no need. I think maybe earlier in the year you had Dowel Loggins wanting to play a little bit more like that, where he said, all right, like we, we need to get the ball to our wide receivers because that's what you do. And then we'll complement that with the run. And then I think what happened was a Rocket got healthy. I think he is finally really feeling like himself. I think that second bye week helped him so, so much. And then while Lenorris has improved on everything, he's also improved as running the ball and reading the quick passes and things like that. So I think Dowell said, well, you know what, we're just going to be a ground and pound team.
[00:16:22] If we have to throw it a lot, we can. We have trust in Lenorris. But Lenoris threw it 20 times against Vandy and I think it was like 24, 20, something like that against A and M. That's a ground and pound team and so you're going to lean on Rocket. You have a few designed runs with Lenorris that you did see against Vandy. He's able to scramble as well. He's able to stay on his feet and keep his eyes downfield. Like that pass where he rolled out and threw it to Jared Brown. That's a fantastic play. I mean, he's rolling out, scrambling, fighting for his life and then keeps his eyes downfield and connects on a big pass. And then you saw some of the connections to harbor and that looks like a guy who's really starting to figure it out. That catch and run he had was one of the best ones that we've seen and he's had a couple of games now where he's had multiple catches. He's been able to get some yards after the catch. That is that next development there. I don't know if it's going to happen. You know, with the flip of a switch in these next few games. But the fact that you can say, hey, we can count on you for a few catches here, right? And if he breaks a big one, I mean, that's what we've all been waiting for. But he's been on those go routes and we've seen it earlier in the year as well. So just a fantastic team effort here, 28 to 7, really should have been 31. If Herrera makes that kick, that's just a butt whooping. But yeah, the Gamecocks are able to go up there and do what no other SEC team was able to do, which is put Vandy in its place and just have a comfortable, good game.
[00:17:59] And so you saw all phases of this for four quarters. The team came out to play. It was a physical game. You know, you saw guys like Tonka get banged up, you saw Dylan, you know, limp off a little bit. But I think everyone's okay. As I sit here talking about this, I haven't heard anything too, too serious. So hopefully everyone is ready to go. And then the greatest thing or one of the greatest things to come out of this is that the Gamecocks are now ranked, sitting at 23 in the AP poll, so, so rightfully deserved. Should have been last week after the A and M win, but that's neither here nor there. So you have a team that's bowl eligible, ranked, and seemingly still only getting better. And I think it is just a testament to the culture in that building. And that's the players, that's the coaches, that's everybody where they said, hey, we have a good squad here. We had a couple of things that didn't go our way early in the year. Tough luck. We're going to go prove all the haters and doubters wrong and we're going to come together here and we're going to continue, continue to get better credit to this entire coaching staff and all of the players. I mean, I just keep thinking about the offense really starting to settle in and getting better and better and looking more consistent. Like, yes. Are there things you want to improve on Lenora's ball security. You know, luckily it didn't bite us in the ass too bad this game. But when he is able to hold onto the ball like an A and M, it's fantastic. You know, I thought the offensive line held up pretty well. Obviously the run blocking worked really well. Pass blocking I felt was solid. There's a few times where Lenorris was able to escape and avoid the sack, of course, but still just feels like they're coming together. And again, if you can just find that wide receiver to sprinkle in 3, 4, 5 catches to compliment Josh Simon getting 3 or 4 catches. Rocket does a few as well. It's, that's just the formula right now. That's just the formula. And we will await the College Football Playoff rankings. Hopefully South Carolina gets into that as well because right around the corner is a matchup against Missouri where South Carolina is looking to break another streak here. And if you're looking at the AP poll at least it is a ranked versus ranked matchup. Very exciting here. A fantastic showing from the South Carolina Gamecocks against Vandy and you're on a three game heater and you're looking at the schedule and you say we can do this, so let's keep it going. Hopefully the guys get in, they get healthy and they are ready and to stay locked in for this one. But with that, y'all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecocks. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecocks. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'all. Go Cox.
