Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking GameCocks. Gamecock football is 20 after a long weather delay. And men's soccer beats Charlotte. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:53] Okay.
[00:00:55] Welcome to episode 337 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And are we. Are we awake, Gamecock nation? Are we caught up on our sleep? My goodness.
[00:01:15] Saturday night had us up far too late for a game against South Carolina State, respectively. But my goodness, that was a very interesting Saturday night.
[00:01:28] Went to bed late. I'm all thrown off here. I feel like I'm an elderly person here, being so thrown off by going to bed just a little bit later. But, you know, hey, that's life. You roll with the punches. That's football.
[00:01:40] This is what being a football fan is about. Can you show that grit when you have to stream a game only can't easily change the channels. You got to stay up a little later. You got to have those couple extra beers to keep you going.
[00:01:56] And can you function the next day and have a good week thereafter? I think I'm on that way. Hope y' all are, too. But nonetheless, we're going to get into all that soon enough. But, yes, hope y' all had a great weekend and are ready to tackle this week here.
[00:02:13] Going to do a quick weekend, weekend recap there, and then we'll jump into football here. Only got a couple of scores to report here. There is some action going on Sunday with women's soccer and women's soccer, volleyball, but right now, those are in action. So wishing them nothing but the best. But Friday, men's soccer was in action at home and beat Charlotte 2 to 1. So that's great. You've had the men's team so far. They've had their ups, they've had their downs. Feels like they are progressing. That's a good win there. And of course, the women's soccer team has had a really strong start there. So shout out Gamecock soccer there. And then on Saturday afternoon, you had women's volleyball. They were in action and unfortunately did lose to Florida State. 3 Nothing. That's all right, ladies. Screw the Knowles. We'll get them next time. But that is all I have for y' all from around USC athletics. But of course, we have to talk about Saturday night under the lights. Williams, Bryce. But my goodness, like, what an interesting weekend in college football you have. We have to talk about this at least a little bit here. But down goes Florida to usf. That Team in the Upstate was pushed to the test here. You had other high ranked teams having some interesting struggles as well. Penn State had a kind of a close scare there. Baylor upsets SMU in double overtime. Iowa State squeaks out the win against Iowa. It was a very interesting week two to say the least.
[00:03:52] And the interestingness and the drama, whatever you want to say, was not spared. In Colombia, you had a 7 o' clock kickoff and seemingly before, seemingly everything was going okay. I had people reaching out to me saying, hey, like, any, any news on the weather here? And I'm like, I think it's fine. You know, I'm looking, I'm, I didn't go to the game. I'm looking at my phone and says Columbia, slight chance of rain. And then it seemed like just before kickoff, all of a sudden I, I see that there's lightning in the area. And anyone who was there, I'm sure can attest to it. But we all know what happened.
[00:04:32] Gamecocks ended up having basically a two hour delay, two hours and change to get this game started. So you're kicking off just after 9 o'. Clock. It felt like, you know, a late show. It was like the Late show with Shane Beamer airing on espn.
[00:04:49] And you're just, all right, like we're, we're gonna do this. You know, it's, it's funny, you know, you're, you're on social media and people are talking, they're like, oh, like, are we gonna move the game to Sunday, yada? Like, I never thought that was gonna happen. But delays are wacky, you know, like, we're gonna get into the game here, but like I do. It's not an excuse, right? But do keep it in the back of your mind. I mean, you had games around the country in the Southeast that dealt with delays and it threw off momentum for the teams you saw in the NFL. The opening game, there was a weather delay that changed the momentum.
[00:05:29] You're in the locker room sitting there for two hours and you were ready to go. You probably have been up early, you're anxious for the home opener.
[00:05:39] It's just whacked. And so I'm hoping that some of the inconsistencies that I'm going to speak about here can be tied back to that a little bit. But let's look at the positives here. Okay? Gamecocks are 2 and oh, beating South Carolina State 38 to 10.
[00:05:58] And it's funny because if you are keyed in to Gamecock social media or you have those group Chats.
[00:06:06] It might have felt like we lost 38 to 10 at times, like we have a 28 point victory and yet there's a lot of mixed emotions there. So let's start off with the overarching positives. Okay, you're two and oh, you settled into the game well and you ended up handily beating the inferior opponent.
[00:06:31] These teams are scrappy. Like everybody wants to beat the cupcakes. 77 to nothing.
[00:06:38] That rarely happens. You know, these teams are still well coached. They have athletes. Especially when you talk about a South Carolina state, it's right down the road. They come in amped up for this game under the lights of Williams Bryce and sometimes it just takes a little bit for the other team to settle in, figure it out, make some adjustments and then pull away. And ultimately that is what South Carolina did.
[00:07:07] South Carolina had superior athletes in all three phases of the game, generated points in all three phases of the game and ended up cruising to a victory where the team was able to come the fourth quarter utilize those reserves.
[00:07:25] I just think maybe we were hoping it would be a little bit sooner, it'd be a little bit smoother, but nonetheless you're two and oh, you know, wasn't always pretty but you are 2, 010 under under the lights at Williams Bryce and you absolutely take that. We have to talk about Vicari Swain that like you talk about what I liked and what I didn't like. I Love Vicari Swain. Three consecutive punts dating back, dating back to week one. He ran them back. Incredible. The man generated 14 points of offense by himself in this game. Of course. Shout out to the special teams unit, shout out to the coaching.
[00:08:06] Wow, that's a weapon for South Carolina. And you know, there are games and it's not always going to be this way but there are games where offense is sluggish and you got to generate the points elsewhere.
[00:08:23] Boom. You get that. Special teams play two of them. I mean that second one was just, that's just a heads up play. That's coaching, that's knowing what to do. And yeah, you're not always going to be able to get the punt return but having that weapon and knowing that you have that threat, it's an, it's an advantage for the Gamecocks.
[00:08:43] And you know, there's a lot of talk about Beamer ball, of course, and Shane Beamer has talked about this. Beamer ball is not necessarily just great special teams play.
[00:08:54] It's being able to generate points in different ways, whether it is special teams or on Defense because the offense might not always have it.
[00:09:04] So shout out to Vicari Swain, like really brought the juice in this game. Really energized the team, the fans, the stadium.
[00:09:13] Incredible effort by him and the punt return unit. I mean, really getting the party started and getting Carolina over the hump to begin to pull away in this one.
[00:09:25] So then you also look at, you're generating points on defense. Incredible. Shout out. Shout out to Jaren Willis, recovering that fumble and taking it to the house. A guy that I talked about in the off season as could be a big piece for that linebacker core. Absolutely love to see it. He paid his dues, developed, and you absolutely love seeing it pay off. So right there you have 21 points generated from defense and special teams. That is incredible.
[00:09:59] That is things that you love to see because if you can do those things, it makes it difficult for teams to put you away.
[00:10:07] And a calling card of the South Carolina defense under Clayton White has been able to not just generate turnovers, but to generate points as well. So you'll love to see that. Okay. You'll absolutely love to see that. Something else that I was really glad to see, talking about the offense, here is the explosive play, okay, the explosive play to Vandravius. We have now seen two deep balls that Lenores has thrown incredibly well for big touchdowns. I think that this offense, I don't think they're going to be the kind that's going to just blow people away. As good as Lenores is, we have those playmakers and there are some veteran players at, you know, every position in that, in that offense.
[00:10:54] I think that it's going to be, you're going to be hanging around, but you have that kill shot in your back pocket, so to speak. So to be able to see that was great. And when Lenores had the time and when he had a clean pocket, he looked pretty well, you know. And you saw it. I think it was more in that third quarter, but you saw those 8 yard, 12 yard passes to move the chains and the passing game started to click a little bit as the game went on. And that's exactly what you want to see when you're not able to get it going earlier. But the run game two, seeing attaway find the end zone was great.
[00:11:34] And you have to be able to cash in when you're down in that area. And that's something that the Gamecocks were able to do in week one and it was something that the Gamecocks were able to do on Saturday night. So those are some Positives there.
[00:11:49] Switching gears to the defense again. Dylan Stewart, I think, played a really good game.
[00:11:54] He was able to generate pressure to the quarterback. He had that fantastic play which was really clowny and esque where he blew up the running back immediately as he was handed the ball in the backfield. Really, really good to see.
[00:12:11] There's some injury concerns pretty much in every unit. You know, Shane Beamer hasn't gotten into specifics yet that I've seen, but he said they came out of this game pretty banged up, so hopefully it's nothing too serious. I know that the, the defensive backfield took some hits as well, but, you know, when we, when we look at the other side of this game. Right, because it wasn't pretty. And I think the hope going into this one was that the offense would look much more crisp. They would, you know, be able to move the ball more at will than they were week one. And we didn't always see that, you know, like when you're looking at the rushing stats here.
[00:12:57] Jarwan Howell led the team with 30 yards. Then it was Lenores. Sewell had 21 yards. Oscar Attaway had 20, you know, averages.
[00:13:07] Attaway had three, Rasool four. So, you know, not being able to consistently generate that push did concern me.
[00:13:17] And when you talk about the offensive line, you know, we're here again saying some of the things that we've been saying. Just not being able to play consistently, not being able to generate that push.
[00:13:31] I, you know, I said two seconds ago, when Lenores had the clean pocket, he did well. But there were far too many examples where Lenores had to roll out of the pocket and had to run for his life. I'm sorry, but against South Carolina State, that really should not be the case. Like, occasionally, sure, that's going to happen, but you need to be able to impose your will against some of these teams. And you're getting into SEC play now, there's not going to be many offensive lines or defensive lines rather, that you're going up against that the O line can say, yeah, we're just going to be able to manhandle you. It's going to get only harder. So that's a concern.
[00:14:07] You know, the pass pro was spotty, but the run blocking two weeks in a row now have not been able to really generate that. That is something that absolutely has to get worked on and absolutely needs to get fixed.
[00:14:22] When we talk about the receivers here, you know, Lenoris was able to spread it around a little bit more. VanDravis got involved Murph Michael Smith, Mazio had a couple of catches, he targeted harbor, wasn't able to connect with him. Jared Brown, they tried to get him involved in some unique ways, but still didn't really see that connection happen yet. So there's still, you know, not a lot to be desired on that side of it. So it's a funny game where this offense, they scored 14 points. You know, like saying the quiet part out loud.
[00:15:01] If you take away scoring on special teams and defense, the score is 14 to 10.
[00:15:07] Now, that's not to say that if, you know, Vicari doesn't house the second punt that South Carolina doesn't, you know, score, because we were. We would have had good field possession. I think the issue in the beginning of the game at least, was being pinned back, but that's still not really an excuse to not be able to generate offense. You know, we went into this game and I said one of the crows to the game was to be better on third down than you were in Week one. And you didn't really see that, especially early in the game against an inferior opponent. So I think that's the thing that is tripping up me and a lot of other fans is that it just didn't look good. Like, the eye test for large swaths of the game for the offense didn't really look great.
[00:16:06] And so it is possible that you're still working out some of the kinks. It's early again, there's the delay, crappy feel that's just sopping wet. Yes, all of these things could be true. And last year, and I don't want to do this a lot where we look backwards, but last year there were instances, particularly week one, where the offense looked anemic, and then you come back around in week two and you're able to look better or, you know, you look at the Ole Miss game and then the team's able to come out the next week and look much more crisp. So it's not to say that it's a lost cause because you have great playmakers on that side of the ball. I think there's still just adjustments that need to be made, but now is the time to do it. And I think Shane Beamer is willing to do what it takes and have those conversations with Mike Shula and that staff, because it just seems like they're not quite on the same page yet. And now it's go time because you're getting into the meat of the schedule and you have to be able to fix some of these things. So That's a takeaway for me. Right where we don't know what the offense would have done, you know, with some better field position, but you play the hand you're dealt with, so it's fantastic that you're able to generate these points elsewhere.
[00:17:29] But I just wish we saw more consistency from the offense to move the chains, especially earlier in the game, to move the chains and get in a position to score. William Joyce missed a kick, so the offense did bring themselves into a position to put points on the board, but that wasn't an easy kick. You know, I forget what he missed from. It was, you know, high 40s, I want to say, like a 48er, but, you know, you didn't do yourselves any favor there. So the team has to continue to improve and come along on that side of the ball. Defensively, look, you gave up 10 points like you gave up that touchdown late. That's, you know, is what it is. It would have been really impressive to go two games without letting up a touchdown, but there were instances where the team was not able to get off the field on third down.
[00:18:22] And without Dylan Stewart, you know, Brian Thomas had a couple of good plays generating pressure. A couple other guys got in the action. Pikes had a nice play. Need to be able to continue to improve in that aspect. We knew that with that less depth and yes, you're missing JT gear, but you need to be able to do that. Okay. You saw Demon Clowney making a few plays there, but he needs to play more consistently.
[00:18:45] Getting off the field on third down, that's a call out for the defense. And, you know, staying on the field in third down for the offense is a call out there. There were some chunk plays given up by the defense through the air as well. I think some of that could be attributed to the injuries that that group was dealing with. I think Cse got banged up. You didn't have judge. I think Kilgore was out too. So a wacky game from that perspective. We're going to find out more details about, you know, injuries and things like that as the. As the days go on. But look, bottom line, in this game, you gotta love that you were able to generate points in all three phases. Like, don't minimize that.
[00:19:29] You're able to punch it in when you're deep in the red zone with Attaway. That's great that there's takeaways there that you can build on. The explosive play to Vandravius was a thing of beauty. It's great that someone else Other than Harbor did that, you saw some other guys get involved. You saw the passing game settle as the game went on. Positives, those are all positives. Let Lenores cook and good things tend to happen. You need to be able to run the ball more consistently, period.
[00:19:54] So that needs to be continued to work on. And I don't know what that is. I don't know if it's scheme, I don't know if it's coaching, I don't know if it's the personnel, but something needs to improve noticeably going into next week. You have to be able to convert on third down. You have to be able to have those extended drives. So you're two zero. Like, let's celebrate that.
[00:20:19] You know, I'm happy sitting here on a Sunday with the win. You absolutely take that. You are what your record says you are. And the Gamecocks are undefeated.
[00:20:30] Undefeated, winning by 28 points with our C game of an offense.
[00:20:37] So imagine what that offense looks like with its B game or its A game.
[00:20:43] Continue to get some guys back defensively, have better depth as we get into SEC play. Hopefully gear comes back. Hopefully some of these, you know, guys that are banged up from this game are too serious. But at the end of the day, gamecocks are 2 0.
[00:20:58] There's things to be improved on. 2 and O is better than a lot of other teams can say right now. Like, let's take solace in that. It was a wacky weekend around college football. Carolina avoided the worst of it. 28 point win two zero. Absolutely love it. SEC play around the corner. Let's lock in.
[00:21:15] 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 cocks.
