Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This episode of Cox talking gamecocks is brought to you by the Mason Jar, New York City. The Mason Jar is the official gamecock bar for the New York City area. Fans and alumni of USC can come by the Jar for some great barbecue, cold drinks, and of course to watch the gamecocks in any sport, all while surrounded by South Carolina memorabilia. If you want to get a slice of game day in Columbia, all while in the Big Apple, head to The Mason Jar on east 30th street.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: All right, here we go.
It.
Welcome to episode 186 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. Brought to you by The Mason Jar, New York City. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 18 one to 2001. And you'll have to excuse me if I sound a little funky dealing with a little bi week cold. I guess body didn't know what to do without crushing beers and watching football hours and hours on end.
So I'll try to not be too stuffy for you here, but I hope you all enjoyed your bi week feel, refreshed and everything like that. Aside from my cold here, it was a very welcomed time off. Got to relax, get a little R and R and all that jazz, but we are back and better than ever. Back with the vengeance here. Going to preview this weekend's game here, but before I do have a few week in review updates from around USC athletics for y'all. So let me dive into this. Starting with Tuesday, the women's golf team finished fourth in the Jackson T. Stevens cup. It's a solid finish. I'll take that. And then Wednesday, the women's golf team, they went into match play against Stanford. I guess that's based off of the rankings and how you finished the previous day and whatnot, but unfortunately, the ladies took the loss to Stanford four to one. Screw the cardinal. And Wednesday, also, women's volleyball beat Georgia three to one. That's a nice win there. And Thursday, men's soccer unfortunately took the loss to West Virginia three to two. Kind of feel like those guys are having a little bit of a tough season. Feels like updates haven't been all that great, but hopefully they can sort of turn things around back half of the season and get it going. Here Stone Stadium. Shout out Stone Stadium. Great place to go. Also, update from the football team here. The Missouri game, the Mayor's Cup game next weekend was announced. It will be a 330 kickoff. So going to the fake Columbia, Missouri for a nice afternoon kick. I'm welcoming these afternoon kicks. I mean, I love night games, obviously, but those 330s as a fan, it's great.
When you're watching it on TV, it's great. You get your whole morning to yourself, kind of get the engines primed. Then you have beautiful afternoon kick, game ends. Want to go watch more games, you want to go home, want to go dinner, do numerous things. It's great. But nevertheless, here this Saturday, speaking of afternoon kickoffs, south Carolina is taking on the Florida Gators at Williams Bryce 330 for the first day game of the year at Willie B. So that's kind of neat. But again, with the 330 kickoffs, I like it because this time of year you're going to get that fourth quarter, maybe early third. The sun is going down, it can become night, and you get the extra little push from the crowd that you need late in the game. Not that you ever really needed a Williams Bryce. We have such a good crowd, but there you go. The Gamecocks are currently at two and a half point favorites, and the team is definitely looking to take advantage of the bye week that we're coming off of and going into this game as healthy and as prepared as you possibly can be.
So far in his tenure, Shane Beamer's teams have looked really good after those bye weeks, right? They've tended to come out and corrected things that have been plaguing them. They've tended to come out and that first game, especially after, looks sharp and everything like that. So hopefully that trend continues because there's no beating around the bush with this. This is an absolutely critical game for South Carolina. Gamecocks are currently at two and three. We all know that. And we're also facing back to back road games coming up. So cocktober is here. This is our month. But don't let it fool you. It's a challenging month in that you're only home once. So for this season to stay on track, this is basically a must win game. I called the Mississippi State game the linchpin to the season. That was because you needed to win that game to really hold everything together. That's true. And that remains true, and that was a huge win.
Now you're looking at a potentially must win game, right? I mean, there's obviously a lot of football left, but if you can get a win here against an SEC team and move to 500, then you feel a hell of a lot better about your team and you can look at the rest of the schedule a little bit differently, as opposed to if the worst happens on Saturday. All of a sudden you're in a very, very deep hole. And you're not just thinking of a path to six. You're thinking like, how the heck can we get to six? You know what I mean? So it's obviously a huge moment for the team, and you have to feel good about it coming after the buy, right? If you are a Shane Beamer team so far in his tenure, he's come out of the buy well.
They've been able to tinker and things like that. So this game at home after the buy, you feel good about where this falls. And I'll get into Florida in a second here. But going against a team that you feel that given the circumstances, this is kind of a squad you feel okay going against. But I do think the time off to get healthy will be huge for this team. I think against Tennessee, the guys were just more banged up than we realized, and it showed. Shane Beamer said everyone except Juice is good to go for this game, so that's great. And then speaking of Juice, he said he's doubtful for this week, said it's not impossible that he plays, but read between the lines, he's not playing. He did say his foot injury is healing well, healing very fast, he said, but he's considered week to week. So Juice is critical for this team, right? If Juice is on the field, it's really a different offense. But foot injuries, they are tricky. They can linger, they can flare up. I'm no doctor, obviously, just have a podcast, but it's tough. I mean, I hope we can see him soon. I'd love to see him back this month, but I don't know. So right now we're just hoping for the best for Juice. But I also think that this week off will have proved to be critical for the offensive line.
Honestly, maybe the most critical time off for a single position group for this team. Their play has not been up to par for the most part of this season, but a lot of that is being attributed just to having so many moving pieces along the line because of injuries and things like that. Guys haven't been able to gel together. And we all know on the offensive line that is one of the most important parts of an offensive line. Like, you need them to gel together. You'll see them on the bench, they all sit in the same order. You hear these stories of offensive linemen. They'll even eat in the same order, left tackle to right tackle. So hopefully the staff finally feels good about their best five that they're going to move forward with. And they use this extra time to build a little bit more continuity, just consistently practicing, and then they're going to roll out with that five and say, this is it for the rest of the year, and we're just going to go with it. Because continuity and chemistry probably is going to trump experience right now.
That's where we're at in this line. But as for Florida, what are the gamecocks looking at? And it's kind of been this way for a while with me. I've said this on the show before, but right now, Florida, it's just not a team that puts fear into you, right? I'm not terribly scared of the Gators. Right. You look at a team like these upper echelon teams that just roll over everybody right now. That's just not what Florida is, right? It's a program that will always be very talent rich. It's very easy, for lack of a better word, to recruit well at Florida and they've had a few different coaches and all of them have recruited pretty well, but it's been a while since they had a team that again just rolled over people right under Billy Napier. They're still figuring some things out and it's not to say they won't get there, but as it stands today they are just far from a finished product. Now so far this year they have a pretty respectable record. They're four and two, two and one. In the SEC they had a very impressive win over Tennessee but otherwise their wins are Vanderbilt and a couple of cupcakes. Right? Offensively they have a very strong run game with a couple of backs that they like to use. They want to control the time of possession and the pace of the game with that. Defensively they have some good talent scattered throughout but really their rushing defense seems to be the strength on that side of the ball for them.
But of note here, while I don't have the specific numbers in front of me under Billy Napier, the Gators rather yeah, the Gators have been really Jekyll and Hyde so far, as far as their home and away performances have gone where? At the swamp, they're good to maybe very good, but outside of that, they just have not been good at all. And that includes the neutral site games. So very interesting to see how this is going to play out. So with that said, let me jump into my Crows to the game here for any new listeners. Everyone has their keys to the game. I don't do that. We have our rooster Crow so I have my Crows to the game. So for the whole team here, my Crow is be the more disciplined team.
Vegas has this line as very close, they have it as a close game, less than three points and I think these teams match up to the point where it probably will be a close game throughout. So you have to be the least penalized team, period. Now, as we've seen before, that doesn't guarantee things going your way but it certainly doesn't hurt, right? Because if you are the more penalized team that is a recipe for disaster. You're coming off a bye week, you have time to really get on the same page about everything, communication, all that jazz. Be the least penalized team, let Florida beat themselves defensively. My first crow is to make Graham Mertz beat you. So Florida's quarterback, he is the transfer from Wisconsin where at WISCO he had regularly struggled with his decision making. He's been pretty good so far this year, I'll give him credit, his numbers look pretty good. I've watched a little bit of Florida football. I think he looks fine, not great. He's far from all SEC. His numbers look good, but he's far from all SEC again, they've really only had one great win, right? He struggled against Utah, everything like that. Whatever so with Florida really looking to establish the run, carolina needs to have a pretty similar game plan to what we saw against Mississippi State and basically load the box and make it difficult for them and tell Graham Mertz to convert big pass after big pass. And eventually, if that's the case, I think he will make a mistake that will cost them or he just doesn't do it with much know the gamecocks did that against Mississippi State and Will Rogers kind of made us pay for it, right? But that's Will Rogers, I think he's on a different level than Mertz. So load the box, make Mertz beat you, make him make a mistake.
My second Crow to the game here. Keep the linebackers fresh. Right? There's going to be a lot of strain on that group with how well Florida does run the ball. And they have been reliant very heavily on Debo and Stone. Have the gamecocks been. But if Florida can continue to try, if they're going to try and own the clock, that's kind of their game plan, right? Clayton White has to be able to rotate bam and Pup in to keep our starters fresh because Debo and Stone have been playing well, especially Debo. But you've heard the coaches say it a lot. You can't ask them to play every snap now. They've gotten better at their rotations week after week. Again, I think with the bye week coming off, you probably feel a little bit more confident in Bam and Pup. You need to see more of a fair share between those four just to keep the starters fresh right on the offensive side of the ball here. My first crow. Get a wide receiver two going, right. There's no denying how much Xavier Leguette is balling right now and that he can be looked at to make those big plays. But if the defense schemes him out of the game, a legitimate second option needs to emerge from the wide receiver group.
This was a struggle for the offense against Tennessee. They took out X from the game, and then we had to rely on other guys to come up. Trey Knox had a nice game, but we didn't really see that wide receiver, too. So to me, I mean, it boils down to Marion Brown, Omega Blake or Eddie Lewis.
If one of those guys can go off six, seven plus good amount of yards, maybe a touchdown even, right? It should be a nice afternoon for the gamecocks.
Now my second crow here is reach into the bag of tricks. As I said before, this is a critical game for the gamecocks. So Dawa Loggins needs to do whatever it takes to be creative and keep Florida off balance, right? Whether that's the wildcock offense, wide receiver passes, lining up with guys out of position like put Spencer out wide. I want to see a couple of Gadget plays to throw Florida off and keep Carolina on the field.
It's no time to play safe. Basically, it's all hands on deck for this game. You have to get this game going. So again, overall for this game, y'all, the importance cannot be stated enough.
It's going to be a great environment and that should definitely be an advantage for South Carolina and the Gamecocks have to find a way to take advantage of that early and not let off the gas, continue to stay aggressive.
Again, I do see this game as probably pretty back and forth.
Florida's very talented.
These teams have seen each other before, but frankly, from the South Carolina side of things, we haven't really seen a game where both sides of the ball have played four very good quarters together.
Just kind of haven't like this season at least against good competition. Right. And this is the perfect chance to correct that coming off a buy at home.
Again, you're going against a team that's talented, but in my like, they're still trying to find an their backs are kind of against the wall right now going into this matchup a bit. Right. And there have been a few moments like that in Shane Beamer's tenure already, and I kind of feel like most of the time the team has responded well in those moments where Shane is able to get the most. Out of the guys, and he's able to get them to rise up to the moment. And he's not afraid to trust his staff to make necessary changes. He's not rigid in a certain philosophy or not. And they do a really good job of self scouting during the season and especially during the by week. So you're able to come out of the break strong and fast.
This off week, it feels like it's been a good reset for the team as they really haven't had a chance to catch their breath until now. Right. It's been a very challenging schedule, more challenging than I'd say, 90% of the teams in the country. You haven't had a chance to catch your breath, figure out what's going on, you had injuries and everything like that. So this buy probably came at the best time for it and I trust Shane Beamer and staff to know had that week scheduled correctly. Shane said he let some of the guys, if they wanted to kind of get a break, mentally, physically love it. They've all said that it's been a good week of practice so far. They've been locked in.
It's all the things you want to hear. Right. But we got to put it together. I want to see four good quarters. Right. It doesn't mean you're kicking ass every single quarter, but you're in the fight, you're competitive, you got to take advantage of any mistakes. I want to see good red zone offense. I don't want to see Dry s stall out. That's something you heard them talk about this week in press conferences where you've kind of seen the offense get going. And then you get to the opponent's 40 45, and they kind of stall. Let's get into field goal range. More. Right. Let's get into the red zone more. Let's make it happen defensively. Got to be able to get critical stops. They've talked a lot about tackles for loss. Can we get those to pile up again? Florida is going to try to pound the rock. Like, how can we make sure they don't get a big hit? A big let's let's keep the ball in front of us. If they're going to move the chains, let's make them earn it. They're going to have to grind it out on us. Load the box. Make mertz make a mistake.
If you got to put the game in Mertz's hands. I think he's going to make a mistake at some point. I just do. I'm looking at OD fortune feeling it. Big game from him. But I do like Shane Beamer. After a bye week at home with a healthier team to get this thing back on track, So let's root him in. Let's go, Cox. All right, let me give you my six pack of picks, and then I will get y'all out of here. Starting with the ACC. Give me louisville. Louisville. How about them? Hell of a season from them so far. Minus seven and a half versus Pitt. Pitt is terrible. Give me the cards. Big Twelve. Kansas State versus Texas Tech over 56 and a half. I went for the big twelve over two weeks ago. Didn't Work. Going for it again. Big Ten. Indiana versus Michigan over 46. Michigan's favored by, like, 30 something points. So assuming they score at least 30 something, maybe Indiana chips in enough, it goes over Pac twelve. This is a great game here. Oregon versus Washington. I'm going to ducks plus three. I think it's going to be a close one. SEC. Give me Georgia -31 and a half verse Vandy group of five. UNLV minus nine and a half versus Nevada. UNLV has been a cover machine so far. I'm trying to get on the train. But with that y'all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social, 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.
