WMD's Thoughts: Gamecocks

[War Machine Dawg]

Hey peeps. A few brief observations from the game last night.

1. Let's get it out of the way up front: SEC officiating is trash. Between them and the Premier League, I'm not sure who's worse. Lots of the same types of problems. Two calls last night we've never seen called that way before and will never see called that way again. It's infuriating that it always happens against us, too. I'm convinced the refs just huddle up and say "It's State. Screw 'em. Why? Cause screw 'em, that's why."

2. Will had a good game, easily his best in two years. Hats off to him. You can see the limits of his arm strength, but that's baked into the cake at this point. The batted passes because he's short are frustrating. He's gotta protect the football, too. The "pick" in the redzone was a really terrible decision. Either throw it way out of bounds or take the sack. Don't get me started on the "fumble." Never seen a fumble travel 10 yards with a perfect spiral. The other fumble, good rip by the defender. Learn to slide, kid. You're not Dak or Fitz, so don't take the hits.

3. Tulu can flat play. Keep feeding him the ball. More touches for Creed, too. Surely there's a way to get both of them on the field at the same time.

4. OL was better. Not great, but better.

5. Much better game from Barbay. That's much closer to what we thought we'd see. Run it, PA off the run for deep shots. Keep doing that and we'll have a chance on offense.

6. D is hot garbage. Another night where a QB looked superhuman. There's zero hope of stopping anyone with this unit. Let's just hope we can outscore a couple of teams.

7. As I saw C34 say, our D is very, very slow. I'm pretty sure our DBs couldn't cover me. Remember after the Zona game when I speculated the reason we never saw us us try to play press or bump coverage on their WRs despite being murdered all game by a simple bubble screen was because our DBs might be really slow? Turns out that's exactly the reason.

8. Pretty much every SEC QB is going to have a field day against us. Arnett in game interviews are can't miss hilarious at this point, too. When asked what it would take for Rattler to throw an incompletion, he just laughed. The expression on his face said it all, because it's probably the same one all of us had. He knows.

9. Brock wasn't ready to be DC. He's gotta go, yesterday. It might not help with the lack of speed on that side of the ball, but it wouldn't be any worse. Gotta hire a real DC in the offseason and let him run his D. If that means a system change to a 4-2-5 or 3-4, so be it. Arnett can't be a control freak about it if he wants to evolve into a CEO style head coach.

10. We're going to struggle to win 6. Proud of the way the offense responded and the game the coaches called. But our lack of speed on D is a death sentence in the league. I absolutely dread what the BearSharks are going to do to us in November. The only silver lining is outside of LSU and UGA, the SEC isn't great this year, so we have a chance to slip up on a couple of teams. We'll win our 2 OOC games, but they're going to be ugly shootouts.

Overall, we learned a lot last night. There's some hope for this staff on offense, although I stand by getting rid of Friend in the offseason. D staff needs to have a major rework. I'd keep Turner to coach the DL. Hard to judge our DB coaches with the complete lack of speed and talent they have. Need to use the portal next time it opens and go get two or three CBs and a couple of DL. Bottom line is some things to be proud of and definite improve on offense, but D is a lost cause this year. We're just going to have to recruit our way out of it, via the portal short term and more traditional recruiting long term. Pay up for the NIL, because that's what it's going to take to get the kind of talent it takes to compete in semipro athletics.

Hail State,

WMD

[Offshore Dawg]

If they can't recruit something besides leftovers, this team will never improve. Also, good write up WMD.

[Pancho]

I'm concerned about the quality of transfers who may or may not want to come play for a potential lame duck HC next year.

[The Federalist Engineer]

#8. Yeah, pretty awful. 10 scholarship CBs, they don't look decent at the moment.