Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, the football team gets good news on the injury front. I preview the Mississippi State game, and the men's golf team has a good outing. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay.
[00:00:56] Welcome to episode 406 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope y' all had a lovely week. Gamecocks. I'm going to get into a second here, but I just feel like there's this, like, anxiousness, excitement, tension in the air amongst our fan base. SEC play beginning for the football team, and it just feels like everyone is that much more engaged. Whether you want to call it being on edge or engaged, that's up to you. Decide. But I think there's a lot of excitement amongst the fan base, and it's off to the races now. I mean, we are fully in it and a lot to cover, a lot to preview. So I'm going to get right into things here, starting with a week in review from around Gamecock athletics. On Tuesday, women's volleyball unfortunately lost to ETSU 3 to 2. Also on Tuesday, the women's golf team finished second in the Stevens cup, and the men's golf team finished first in the J.T. potson Invitational. So shout out to the men's golf team winning the tournament. That's very impressive. And shout out to the women's golf team, too, Coming in second. A couple nice teams right there. And then on Wednesday, women's golf was back in action.
[00:02:24] They beat Wake Forest 3 to 2. So a nice week on the golf front. Very jealous. I was actually just sitting here the other day. I was just like. I played, like, nowhere near enough golf as I would have liked, and maybe I'm gonna have to try and find a tee time or two this fall if you can time, like, a round of golf before, like, a kickoff, like a night game.
[00:02:49] That's living large. I have not had the stones to pull that off, but nonetheless, that sounds like a really good time here. But speaking of football, we're going to jump right into things here. We got some big news this week. It was the first week where you had to release an injury. Injury report. Excuse me. Because it is SEC game. And the big anticipation was that, what's the deal with Peak and Stewart? And the good news is that both were listed as probable.
[00:03:19] That's great. I mean, it's expected where we felt that they were progressing well, and there was no reason to rush them in these first two games. Get them Ready for Mississippi State.
[00:03:30] So it's not maybe the biggest surprise, but it's a big impact because now there's layers to this.
[00:03:37] Mississippi State now has to account for them, particularly Dylan Stewart, but it just makes both lines of scrimmage that much deeper.
[00:03:50] Are they going to be able to play the full amount of snaps that they would normally if they were not coming off injury? That remains to be seen and frankly, I would be surprised if they do. Shane Beamer kind of alluded to this when he said anytime a player misses a couple of games, you have to ramp them back up, particularly if it was at the start of the year.
[00:04:11] I'm very, very interested to see how this plays out, particularly with Peak. He was brought here from the portal to be our starting left tackle. He's probably making a pretty penny doing so.
[00:04:24] That's his natural position. That's where he thrives. Does he go right back to starting there or do you ease his way back into it in some way, shape or form? Like is it a little bit of a rotation? I wouldn't be surprised if he starts out there, but maybe gets rotated out depending on how things are going. What do you do with Darius Gray? Do you move him over at all? Do we see a shake up at center? There were a couple of interesting snaps in the Towson game. So pay close attention this week and Saturday afternoon as to what that starting offensive line looks like. It's possible it's not what it ends up being, but if Peak can get out there and you provide that veteran protection for the Norris, it just makes it. It makes our offense that much more formidable. And then on the other side of things, Stewart is the kind of guy that can just jump right into this thing and wreck a game.
[00:05:20] You know, if he is limited, I. It's always so hard with the number of snaps, right? But let's say he's limited to 20 snaps, right?
[00:05:31] That's not a ton.
[00:05:33] That'd be mainly limited to obvious passing situations.
[00:05:36] That is still enough for him to wreck a game.
[00:05:40] And anytime he is on the field, that offensive line, that quarterback is going to have to account for him. And he's hungry. You know, he was not 100% last year, Stewart, those last few games he was really struggling. And if memory serves, he really didn't play much at all of that Clemson game. So he's probably itching to get out there and he wants to make his mark and then the next step for him is the NFL and he has a good season, he's going to be Drafted quite high.
[00:06:08] So nonetheless, this was incredibly welcomed news. I'm super excited to see them both out there. And even if you get them at like 80 or 90% of their top talent, right, like their top abilities, I should say they're still very, very good players. And you absolutely welcome, welcome them back with open arms. And what a time for them to come back, especially Stewie. My goodness, I'm so glad to see him back.
[00:06:38] And it is again, it's perfect timing as the Gamecocks are kicking off SEC play this Saturday afternoon against Mississippi State. If you remember correctly, I said going into the season, during my season previews, I did not expect this week to be a cakewalk.
[00:06:55] Under Jeff Levy, Mississippi State has slowly improved, and last year they were in some very close games with SEC opponents being on the losing side of them.
[00:07:06] But they showed signs of growth. And now all of a sudden, it seems like everyone is expecting this game to be an uphill battle all the way.
[00:07:15] I don't know if I'm necessarily buying that, but there are loads of people across college football who are impressed with what the Bulldogs have done to this point in the year. And there's also loads of our fans who were nervous going into this one. And to take a side step from that for a second here, I think a little bit of that is that first half against Housing, it had ugly moments. It did.
[00:07:46] The more I've thought about it, the more I'm like, we are really two or three plays away from us thinking that that was an absolute blowout and we're, we're looking great. That's kind of the deal with football. It's tends to boil down to a couple of different plays. I also think there's this PTSD from last year where you thought there might have been some red flags against that lesser opponent second game of the year, and they turned out all to be true in the third game of the year. And you got crushed in your SEC opener. I really don't think that is the case in this one.
[00:08:19] South Carolina physically dominated last week. It was our own mental mistakes that hurt us.
[00:08:26] And again, you're two or three plays away from feeling really good going into that, and you still put up a ton of yards, right? Lenoris was looking great running the ball.
[00:08:38] So I don't necessarily think you can try and draw parallels from that. People are also saying that the third game of the year, Beamer hasn't performed well in his tenure. I. I think that's more coincidence than anything else.
[00:08:53] I think going into this one These two, these two teams are rather evenly matched. I think it's just some folks thought on paper it's Mississippi State, they're bad. We're going to be able to roll through them. And now it's here and you're like, oh my God, like this is an SEC opponent. They beat Minnesota. Come on, Minnesota.
[00:09:16] Like let's all take a deep breath. Yes, this is an SEC opponent.
[00:09:21] It's very rare that there's one that you think you can just trounce over.
[00:09:26] Okay. Mississippi State is a well coached team. They have some good players. Yeah, it's going to be a battle, right.
[00:09:34] And the fact of the matter is that for the Gamecocks to have a successful season and really a season that lives up to many fans expectations, this is a game you do have to win and you have to be on the right side of.
[00:09:48] And again, I think it's just this like reality hitting a lot of us that like, yeah, the real season is starting right now.
[00:09:55] Currently the Gamecocks are sitting at four point favorites. I think home field plays a factor into that. And also Dylan Stewart news.
[00:10:03] I think this line opened like six points in favor of South Carolina. Came down a little bit, I think because of the money. People were excited about Mississippi State and now it's leveled off a little bit.
[00:10:16] I think that when we look at what Mississippi State did going into this one, going against Minnesota, some people are really putting a lot of stock into that. I think we can look at that a couple of ways.
[00:10:29] Particularly like, you know, when we're looking at the South Carolina lens of it all.
[00:10:33] Number one, this is going to be back to back road games for Mississippi State. That's not easy.
[00:10:41] You know, you always forget like these are college kids.
[00:10:45] So to throw them into Minnesota, a weird place they probably have never been before.
[00:10:51] Certainly that's not this deep rivalry. They have to play a powerful opponent, they have to get on a plane, they have to come back now, they have to get on the plane and fly to South Carolina. It's a totally different routine back to back weeks. There's all this talk nowadays about body clocks like that probably gets thrown off. Right.
[00:11:10] And even though they won by multiple scores, this is 0.2.
[00:11:14] They would have had to put more on tape than say South Carolina playing Towson and Kent State. Right. They had to open up the playbook a little bit. So that's more for South Carolina to study.
[00:11:26] And if you look a little closer at that Minnesota game, Minnesota had some extended drives. They tended to just stall out and they had to settle for field goals. I'm talking like 10 play drives, 11 play drives, eating clock.
[00:11:43] So if Carolina can replicate that and find the end zone, it's a different ball game than what happened in Minnesota.
[00:11:51] And I like to think that South Carolina has a greater big play ability than the Gophers.
[00:11:59] This is somehow going to find its way to, like a Minnesota fan and they're just going to roast me and say, I don't know anything about Golden Gophers football. And you're right, I don't.
[00:12:08] But I certainly like to think that South Carolina is just better than Minnesota, especially this year and this year's roster. So let's get into my Crows to the game here. I'll say it one more time for those of y' all who are new. I don't do keys to the game.
[00:12:23] We have our rooster crow. So I have my crows to the game. So starting with the defense here, make Camario Taylor one dimensional.
[00:12:33] So Camario Taylor, Mississippi State quarterback, has quickly become the talk of the sec and his development is apparent through two games. He's a true dual threat, right.
[00:12:44] He's going to provide unique challenges for the Gamecock defense. And there's always the talk about running. Quarterbacks have given South Carolina problems. News flash. They tend to give everybody problems. Okay? Like, there's very few times if ever that you've heard a defensive coach say, yeah, no problem.
[00:13:03] So, yes, he's a dual threat quarterback. All that means is you have to try and limit that ability. So I'm looking at our linebacker core to contain Taylor's running ability, limit that scrambling and force him to stay in the pocket. Because I think if he's forced to do that, while he has shown an improved ability through the air, I like our front four and I like our defensive back to do a better job than what we saw them do in Minnesota.
[00:13:33] Number two, get Kamario Taylor on the ground. You're going to see a common theme there.
[00:13:39] It is imperative to disrupt Taylor's timing.
[00:13:43] Although he has largely had his way with defenses to this point in the year, there have been signs that if you get him on the ground, he struggles to bounce back. I don't remember where I saw it, but he was sacked last week and then he had two consecutive incompletions after that.
[00:14:02] And again, I think our defensive front is going to be the best one that the Bulldogs have faced this year.
[00:14:10] So really, it's time for South Carolina to flex its muscles in this one. I'm going to quote Cam Smith here just Drop your nuts, number three, generate a turnover. I said this last week and it didn't really happen. Right. Turnovers have not come as easy as you would have thought, thought or would have liked to in the first two games. So this is a great time to change that tune.
[00:14:32] I know I'm trying to put some fears at ease here that this game is going to be a close one, or at least it's. It's shaping up to be one. Right. So anytime your defense can give your offense an extra possession, it's going to be critical.
[00:14:48] And I'd like to see how Mississippi State responds to some adversity.
[00:14:55] Also, like when we, when we think about the defense here, like, Camario Taylor is still football young. I think he's only started like 5 games total in his career at Mississippi State.
[00:15:08] He has a high, a very, very high ceiling. And maybe this is the, maybe this is the year he breaks through.
[00:15:17] But right here as it is today, he's still football young in terms of SEC play, so you have to try and take advantage of that. This is probably going to be the most hostile crowd he's faced in his career to this point.
[00:15:28] Clayton White knows how to create pressure on young quarterbacks. Clayton White is not afraid to change up his defensive looks as well. Going to get into that in a second here for State, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see some unique things from Clayton White to put pressure on a quarterback who, while very dynamic and while very talented, is still rather raw on the offensive side of the ball. My crows to the game number one play, mentally sharp. Okay. We have seen penalties and fumbles on opening drives. We've seen dropped touchdown passes at critical junctures in games.
[00:16:10] That's not going to fly when you're in an SEC game, let alone a close SEC matchup.
[00:16:19] My hope is that after two weeks now, the offense is fully gelled and that some of those mishaps that we saw against Housing have served as a wake up call and teaching moments both for the staff and the roster. Okay. If the offense stays ahead of the chainsaw, it's gonna fully open up the playbook. And that's a side point too. I think Kendall Briles has kept a lot of his playbook closed off this year because we didn't have to.
[00:16:50] Right. You probably saw a lot of bass package with us and then you can flip them side to side, make them look a little different, dress them up, etc.
[00:17:00] There's probably dozens of plays that haven't even been put on tape. For South Carolina yet, and I think that gives us an edge in that regard. Number two, crow to the game. Anticipate and react to unique defensive schemes.
[00:17:16] Everyone knows Mississippi State runs a unique defense. I'm kind of sick of hearing of it. PR actually.
[00:17:21] Okay. It's a base three, three five.
[00:17:25] What makes it a little bit unique and a little bit more challenging is that Zach Arnett, their defensive coordinator, is really good at masking the pressure, and they do unique things with their safeties. Whereas when you see a 3, 3 5, that's basically a nickel for most defenses, yeah, you can bring some pressure and whatnot. Beamer talks about when we run it, it's more. It's more to get more speed on the field.
[00:17:49] With Mississippi State, they might have a guy who has a really good blitzing ability in that backfield who can come and try and, you know, rush the quarterback.
[00:18:00] So it's imperative that Lenores anticipates, reacts, and makes the correct read on who is bringing that pressure and a correct read on what to do with the football.
[00:18:10] I will say I think it's worth noting South Carolina played this Mississippi State defense a couple of years ago. Rattler was the quarterback.
[00:18:18] That team was trending, you know, down. I guess both teams were kind of like, so, so. But nonetheless, Carolina won that game.
[00:18:28] And if there's any lessons to be learned from that, you absolutely should take advantage.
[00:18:35] My third crow to the game on offense is score more than 21 points.
[00:18:39] Listen to this. Jeff Levy's record at Mississippi State when opponents score more than 21 points is 1 and 18.
[00:18:49] He's 1 in 18 when his opponents score more than three touchdowns. Now he's trying to reverse that trend. He brought in Zach Garnett. But if this game were to turn into a shootout, history tells you that that would favor the Gamecocks.
[00:19:06] So overall, for the game here, it's a big moment early in our season here, and it goes back to that. If you're trying to have the type of season that the fans remember, and if you're trying to have the type of season that. That lives up to the ability of this roster and lives up to the expectations of the fans and the coaches alike, this is a game you got to be on the right side on.
[00:19:27] Of course it's going to be challenging, but we're not playing, you know, Georgia here, right? This is a. This is a team that you should feel you are. You match up with pretty well.
[00:19:39] And this is a game that, if you prepare correctly, you can exploit things on their side of the ball and if our stars live up to their ability, they can change games.
[00:19:51] We have guys who are in that depth position who can change games. You have young players, Currents Walker sequel who have started to shine.
[00:20:03] Okay, this is a big moment and let's absolutely get after it.
[00:20:07] All right, let me give you all my six pack of picks and then I'll get y' all out of here quickly. Here acc give me Miami minus 21 verse Wake Forest that is Friday Night Lights. Big 12 Georgia State plus 17 and a half versus UCF. I don't think I've gone the big dog this year. Big Ten give me Western Kentucky and Indiana over 60 sec, you have to go the game of the night, LSU minus 25 versus Ole Miss and Georgia versus Arkansas over 54 and a half. And then in the G5 it's the cock fight. It's Coastal Carolina versus Delaware. Give me Delaware minus four. 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.
