Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, a recap of the football team beating Towson and a weekend look back from Gamecock athletics. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:53] Okay.
[00:00:55] Welcome to episode 4045 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox. Well, I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope y' all had a lovely weekend. Gamecocks. For anyone who was in Colombia this weekend, I hope you're dry. Probably very waterlogged by now. That was just absolutely insane. Someone. Someone posted that pylon cam footage and like, said it's a biblical rain in Colombia right now. And yeah, it really did. Weather in Colombia is. Is insane. I tell you, you can experience seasons that you've never even heard of all in one day. It's remarkable, really. But yeah, I hope everyone's dry and ready to enjoy their weekend. You know, you got NFL football fully underway here. So just a jam packed weekend. It was exciting. Couple of games around college football as well. Texas, Ohio State. That was a wild ending there. That was the perfect like segue where we were in our weather delay and I flipped on the multi view so I didn't miss the game. Coming back had Texas going on right to the right of it and just like, yeah, this, this is a great way to kill some time. And then our game started up. Texas had one and like, all right, let's do this. But before I jump into the Towson game, let's do a weekend recap from around Carolina. Athletics here, couple of fun scores here, starting with women's volleyball. On Friday, they beat the team in the Upstate three to one. Defeated Clemson. Love to see that men's soccer kept their season rolling. On Friday, beating UNCG1 nothing. And then on Saturday, there was more action going on outside of Willie B. Where women's volleyball. Volleyball, excuse me, was back in action and beat Wofford 3 to 1. So a good weekend all around, including the football team as they got the win 45 to 9 over Towson. But let's talk about this one.
[00:02:59] Gonna break the fourth wall a little bit here. Y' all know me, I say I'm not an expert. I'm not trying to be. But more times than not, when we talk about me doing these episodes, I. I sit down and I collect my thoughts a little bit, right? You know, I don't dive into the. The stats and all that. Y'.
[00:03:20] Today's one where I just kind of woke up and said, I gotta just talk about this one because it's a Real mixed bag. What we saw Saturday and I, I saw someone post this on Twitter where they said, carolina PTSD is real. Like we won the game 45 to 9.
[00:03:40] And you would have thought we lost if you look at some Twitter, right.
[00:03:44] It was certainly not what we expected.
[00:03:48] And a lot of this we have to focus on the first half because that weather delay threw things off.
[00:03:56] Cutter and the rest of the backups were in primarily for pretty much all that second half.
[00:04:02] And so we have to take most of our takeaways from what we saw in the first half.
[00:04:09] I think a lot of us, including myself, just assumed what we saw two Saturdays ago now against Akron or excuse me, Kent State, excuse me, Kent State would just happen. And we assumed that the execution and the crispness of what we saw would just naturally happen because it's Towson and whatnot.
[00:04:34] That probably should have been the case. But this is why you play the games.
[00:04:40] Football is a week to week sport.
[00:04:42] Things change. I mean, you look around the sec, LSU struggled after whooping Clemson. They, they had a hard time in their second game at moments Vandy struggled against Delaware.
[00:04:56] It ebbs and flows, right?
[00:05:00] So you come out of the gates and the first thing that caught my attention in this game was the penalties. And I talked about that going into this one that you had to stay disciplined and there was going to be a lot of excitement on that sideline Night game under the lights. Everyone's singing your praises, right? And you want to go out there and they probably wanted to just get out there and beat the crap out of Townsend and get in the end zone.
[00:05:26] Everyone was over amped, everyone.
[00:05:29] There was silly mistakes across the board, couple of false starts that you absolutely can't have holding that you can't have. And you just didn't live up to the standard that you had in week one.
[00:05:43] They settled down a little bit and I think it was six total penalties in the whole game compared to three in the first.
[00:05:51] A couple of them you absolutely need to clean up. And you can clean up.
[00:05:56] Seems like, you know, like the first false start that comes to mind was Darius Gray. He's a true freshman. It's his second game in college, first one under the lights. That's. It's a mental mistake, right? And then you, you saw other instances where receivers are a little bit off, right?
[00:06:16] It is still a new offense. I'm not making excuses, but these guys still are working into this system.
[00:06:24] And I said going into this one that this is a litmus test for how the team needs to go into these night games because there's going to be bigger night games at Williams Bryce. So it's a teaching moment. We have to get those corrected.
[00:06:41] And that made the game start off. Then you look at how the team started offensively, and I don't really know where to begin on this one, but, you know, you had the drive where I guess let me back up. You saw Lenores being more active this game, running the ball.
[00:07:05] I was glad to see that you needed.
[00:07:08] That needed to happen because that's part of his game and he kept the chains moving and that's what he needs to do. Right. You saw him be more decisive in deciding to tuck it in, run multiple times. He had a pretty good pocket. He went through his progression and then he took off and ran. And I think in this Kendall brows offense, it's a quick one, two read and then tuck it in, run. And you saw that. And he kept the chains moving.
[00:07:36] You had the Matt Fuller fumble early in the game, which was brutal because you got that big conversion. He was past the marker. He would have had the first down. And he fumbles it.
[00:07:47] You can't have that.
[00:07:49] That's two games now where we have had some weird turnovers. You know, you lost the Matt Fuller 1, DJ Black in the first game. You recovered it on your own, but that's something that you're going to want to make sure. Doesn't spread.
[00:08:04] Right.
[00:08:06] And then throughout the game, though, the offense just seemed on different pages.
[00:08:14] Lenoris didn't see. He was getting, like, cute with the ball. It felt like. Right. He was putting a lot of air under his throws. I want to see him throw a freaking fastball a couple of times. Right?
[00:08:27] There's. There's one that, you know, he was. The near interception on the close side of the camera later in that first half.
[00:08:37] If he had thrown that with some. With some authority, right. If he throws the fastball there, that might not happen.
[00:08:46] The throw to Mazio is the one that I think everyone's going to talk about and replay.
[00:08:53] Clearly they're on different pages, which Kendall Briles needs to get into that conversation and figure out what are we doing here. Right. Get Coach Furry in there as well.
[00:09:03] Why are we on different pages? Because it seemed like Lenoris was expecting Mazio to stay more flat and Mazio was doing more of a post and Lenores put air under the ball, and because Ma was running the post, it came up short. Whereas if he stayed flat along the goal line, it's probably an easy catch.
[00:09:26] A couple of things There.
[00:09:28] One, I still think Lenoris needs to throw a fastball there, right? Mao had the guy beat. Just put it on him. Put it right on his hands.
[00:09:38] Two, like that is something that needs to absolutely get ironed out.
[00:09:44] Because when you have a breaker in the end zone, and that was on fourth down, too, you have to execute that.
[00:09:51] Then there was some discourse about the back and forth that we saw on the field on camera between Lenoris and Mazio.
[00:10:00] I didn't mind that. I do not mind that.
[00:10:03] You know, Lenoris is a cool customer, and it's been well documented that he might not be the most vocal leader. But also, at the same time, Shane Beamer has said he's encouraged Lenores to be a more vocal leader. I didn't mind that. You're in the heat of battle. All is fair between the white lines. You see that at every level of football. You see it in the NFL all the time. Guys are getting animated to each other. Lenoris is saying, you have to go flat, and Mazio is saying, you gotta throw it to me.
[00:10:32] You gotta get the ball to me. Put it on my chest. So that's okay, right? And then you can tell there were a couple other instances where whether it was Mazio or there was that bubble screen to toggle where it just seemed like they were on different pages. And I don't know if that's still growing into this offense where we're still. Okay, we're two weeks in now, live reps, now we're gonna be, you know, ironing out some of these things.
[00:11:04] Is it that subconscious in the back of their mind, it's Towson.
[00:11:10] Maybe they weren't as locked in. I don't know.
[00:11:14] And then you have a couple of instances where it's not Lenores. You know, he. He put the ball where it needed to be, and guys just dropped it. Tuggle had a bad drop. Nick had two chances in the end zone. Ball hitting him in the hands, and he dropped it. I understand there were the elements at play at times later in that first half, but nonetheless, you have to make that catch. And frankly, if one of those happens, if the Mazeo touchdown happens or. Or either of those harbor catches in the end zone happens, we're probably not talking about the offense looking as sluggish as they did. Even if Matt Fuller holds onto the football and that drive ends in some sort of points, we're probably feeling better about the offense.
[00:12:02] So it's a funny juxtaposition, right, where we really just hurt ourselves. A lot of people want to draw similarities to the SC State game last year.
[00:12:14] Home game, under the lights, lesser opponent, weather delay. Like all those things happen. For sure, it is weird how that happened.
[00:12:21] But in that week one game, the offense looked off and you kind of were like, what's going on there?
[00:12:28] And throughout that whole SC State game, the offense looked off. The guys did get it going. Also in last year's game against SC State. There were times in that game where SC State was out playing South Carolina.
[00:12:43] That was never the case in this one. Towson has a good wide receiver that was giving us problems that's fixable. We're probably playing off him, right? Keeping the play in front of us.
[00:12:55] But for the vast majority of the game, South Carolina was the more physical, dominant team, right?
[00:13:02] Couple of runs that got stuffed, there's that bad sack. But for the vast majority of time, like you performed how you should against an FCS opponent.
[00:13:13] Now, aside from that, thank God for Vicari, the Ferrari, right? Like, incredible. That guy is a weapon. Shout out to Vicari Swain. Most career punt returns in school history. You absolutely love to see that.
[00:13:26] So you take away his two scores and it's 31 to 9. So the offense still put up 31 points. You had 17 in the first half without the weather delay. I think the starters play the entire third and probably perform similarly. You had the missed kick in the first half.
[00:13:45] You would have had 20 points without, you know, you know, in the first. So you're still putting up a good amount of points. Right. But I said this when it happened.
[00:14:00] I'm all for Cutter and those guys getting reps. I felt like the ones could have used another drive or two. Someone pointed out that with the weather delay, you know, you have the increased risk of injury.
[00:14:13] And I, I, I, I do hear that. So look like you, you did what you wanted to do in you put a beat down on Towson right at the final score.
[00:14:31] Are there question marks or like, maybe like yellow flags that went up early in the game? Like, why weren't you able to start? Well, yeah. And we've seen South Carolina teams under Beamer struggle at times to start the game hot.
[00:14:47] Didn't see that in week one. I think there is learning lessons on how do we prepare for the night games.
[00:14:53] I think there's learning lessons for this offense in terms of, like, why are we on different pages in these moments? Like, let's iron those out, let's rep those. Because now it starts. Defensively, I thought they played really well. They, they were all over the thousand quarterback for the most part, they were disruptive. That front seven looked great. Sean Murphy, he looked good. Jo looked good.
[00:15:22] You saw Julian Walker get his first collegiate sacked. He looks the part, man. Like, I must have missed it in that first game, but, like, you see him on the field, he looks the part, big freaking dude. And I'm happy with how the defense performed.
[00:15:40] Special teams, you know, again, talking about Vicari, that's fantastic. He is a weapon.
[00:15:46] And look, SEC teams might not kick to him, they might have better punt coverage, but if he gets in space, he can absolutely make something happen. And you have to take advantage of that.
[00:15:55] He had that blown coverage that led to the touchdown, but nonetheless, love Ikari. So it is a funny mixed bag here where I'm happy. We are two zero, right? Like, no one can take that away.
[00:16:17] Two zero, staying at home. SEC play ratchets it up, right?
[00:16:22] We just have to figure out how do we start a little better. If literally two or three of those plays go differently in the first half, I think we're feeling a lot better about the offense. I don't think there's cause for concern.
[00:16:37] I think these guys are still growing into it. I loved what we saw on the, on the ground. I mean, Fuller ended the game with 125 yards. Coleman found the end zone. Auguste found the. Found the end zone late. Lenores was scrambling.
[00:16:52] So if you can lean on that run game, the passing game will soon, you know, will follow and find that success. I think just have to get on a little bit of a better page. Right? And Lenores has to work on those intermediate throws, throwing it with authority.
[00:17:12] When you're in the end zone, these guys have to make catches and continue to give Lenores and everyone good pockets and you go from there. But all told, look, you win the game 45 to 9. Your defense did a really good job. Your special teams did a really good job in the return game. The kicking game is a different question.
[00:17:34] Not going to harp on that. But yeah, you got to make your kicks offensively. Look, you did more than.
[00:17:45] You did more than enough in that first half. You would have liked to do more. Felt like you left meat on the bone, but nonetheless, you were able to impose your will. You beat yourselves.
[00:17:55] These things are correctable. We're 2 0. We got Mississippi State coming into town this Saturday.
[00:18:02] That game is going to be intense. You saw what they did against Minnesota. They are going to be a more formidable opponent than many people would have thought going into the year. I said they were not going to be a slouch of an opponent. So take the lessons from this game. Grow from them.
[00:18:19] 2, 0.
[00:18:20] And let's go with that, y'. All. That wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecox.
[00:18:29] 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.
