Lack Of Separation, Missed Tackles Headline Trends In Loss To Tennessee

Some notable tendencies played a huge part in the loss South Carolina's Football team suffered at the hands of the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night.

Author:
Joseph Griffin
Publish date:
Oct 1, 2023 1:29 AM EDT

When playing on the road in the SEC, the last thing that you ever want to do is let mistakes pile up on both sides of the ball to the point of becoming insurmountable. Unfortunately for South Carolina, that was the fate they endured on Saturday night in their 41-20 loss to the Tennessee Volunteers. What happened on both sides of the ball that led to this outcome?

Offense

The most notable thing for this offense tonight was the lack of separation from this receiving core. Spencer Rattler very rarely had anywhere to go with the ball, especially in the first half. When the offensive line did give him time, there weren't very many places to put the ball.

Third down conversions continue to be a thorn in this offense's side. After going 2-13 on third down conversions, the offense didn't do the defense any favors, especially in the second half, when the defense managed to string together a couple of important stops and give the ball back to the offense. This continues to be a trend that the Gamecocks seemingly can't get ahead of.

Defense

After what we've seen the past couple weeks, and what took place on Saturday night, it seems missed tackles have been a rather reoccurring theme. On several occasions, the Gamecock defense had guys is position to tackle a player for a loss, or at the least prevent more damage from being done, and either the Volunteers' ballcarriers broke through or Carolina just got beat one-on-one in the middle of the field.

The other issue that seemingly didn't get fixed was not being able to set the edge defending the run. For whatever reason, containing the edge was something they struggled with tonight, and a lot of Tennessee's success in the running game came on the outside.

Although the defense had its struggles and flaws, they gave this team every single chance to remain in this game, but the offense was unable to repay the favor when given the opportunity, leading to the defense being hung out to dry on multiple occasions in the second half. The Gamecocks head into the bye week 2-3 on the season, and 1-2 in conference play. One thing's for sure, they have decent amount of work to do.

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