Clayton White Addresses Pass Defense Struggles
Heading into last weekend's contest, Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers had only thrown for 492 yards in three games, averaging 164 passing yards per game. Against South Carolina's defense, however, Rogers threw for a blistering 487 yards, with 256 of those yards coming courtesy of Lideatrick "Tulu" Griffin and his work out of the slot. Those are the kind of games that lead to uncomfortable film sessions for defenses, but as Clayton White put it during his Wednesday presser, the Gamecocks defense isn't running away from what happened this past Saturday.
"Obviously when things like that happen in the game, it kinda got out of hand from a passing game [standpoint], and [it's] definitely not just one group. It starts with me, first and foremost. Gotta make sure that we are getting our guys in better position to perform, but obviously, you can't look at that kind of performance and just put it under the rug and say, 'That was one bad night.' Obviously [there was] something that we weren't doing correctly on the deep throws, and obviously we're working at it [and] trying to get better."
Part of the thought process for why South Carolina struggled to stop the deep ball was that the Gamecocks were keying in on the run game, and White seemed to confirm that theory by saying the defense knew "once [they] stopped the run, [MSU} had to open it up a little bit."
The season stat sheet so far doesn't paint a pretty picture for South Carolina, who currently possesses the third worst scoring defense, worst passing defense, and 9th ranked rushing defense in the SEC. Even though the data is skewed by the competition the Gamecocks have played so far, the unit has to get better if South Carolina wants to accomplish some of the goals they set for themselves.
"We definitely know that the full body of work right now is not what we want, and we know we all need to improve, but our guys are fighting," Clayton said. "They're practicing, they're looking each other in the eyes, there's no finger pointing. A bad culture team would have lost that football game because of what was going on individually and as a group and as a defense, but our culture brought us together, starting with Coach Beamer, our seniors, [and] our leadership."
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