With freshman struggling, Gamecocks take to skies against Clemson secondary
CLEMSON – It should shock no one that when a South Carolina student-athlete’s name is announced here prior to kickoff, it is quickly drowned out with a hearty harmony of boos and heckles. It should also shock no one that the Gamecock who had the most catcalls directed at him was Marcus Lattimore.
In fact, it was a bit of foreshadowing; just as the Clemson fanbase focused in on Lattimore for some pregame acknowledgement, the Clemson defense focused in on Lattimore as the man it wasn’t going to let beat it.
It was bound to happen at some point, with the freshman from Duncan running wild up and down the traditional powers of the Southeast. Eventually, somebody was going to put most, if not all, of its energy into stopping Lattimore and force USC to beat them another way. Clemson took the plunge and did just that, holding Lattimore to 48 yards on 23 carries.
Not that it did them any good in terms of the outcome of the game, however.
This pleasant valley Saturday for Carolina was sweet because it captured its first back-to-back wins over the archrival Tigers since Tricky Dick was in the Oval Office and Yoko blew up the Beatles. It was even more affirming because the Gamecocks finally won a big game without Lattimore having a big day.
Coming into Saturday, in the seven USC wins Lattimore has participated in, he had averaged 24 carries for 132 yards. In the three losses? 13 carries for 47 yards.
With those numbers, the Gamecocks were getting a bit of a reputation: their only path to victory was a big outing from Lattimore.
That reputation disappeared on Saturday about as fast as Clemson fans hit the exits after Antonio Allen’s pick-six.
“Kevin Steele had an excellent plan,” coach Steve Spurrier said of Clemson’s defensive coordinator. “We couldn’t run the ball on these guys. The only way we could’ve moved it was throwing it.”
So, that’s what USC did. It let Stephen Garcia put the ball in the air 30 times for 227 turnover-free yards and play pitch and catch with Alshon Jeffery to the tune of five catches for 141 yards and a touchdown.
It also relied on a defense having a strong night and played the field position game, and let senior captain Spencer Lanning have a tremendous night kicking the ball with three field goals.
In return, USC got a win, a rivalry game win at that, when its calling card was taken away and it had to improvise — something it’s pretty proud of.
“It means a lot,” Brian Maddox said about winning a game without running well. “The name of our game this year has been running the ball to win. We tried to do it, but we really couldn’t get a run established.”
USC did establish something though — that it can get by and win without a big game from Lattimore and without a consistently successful ground attack.
Is it something the Gamecocks want to make a habit of? No — trying to win games without your bread and butter is akin to walking a tightrope with no net, especially when you’re headed to the SEC Championship Game. But, it’s not a bad feather to have in your cap. Great teams find ways to win when they are not at their best or when they can’t do what they do best, and USC did a little bit of both against the Tigers.
It was a performance the Gamecocks can look back on not only with pride, but to give confidence they aren’t the one-dimensional offensive team they have appeared to be at times.
USC’s holy quartet of milestone wins this year became a quintet here, as a tiger head is currently being stuffed and prepped to be mounted alongside the elephant, bulldog, alligator and coonhound heads on the 2010 season’s hearth.
In five days, the Gamecocks will head to Atlanta and look to make it a sextet and add another feline big game trophy to the collection.
Look for Auburn, which has a defense very similar to Clemson’s, to try and do exactly what it did back in September and what the Tigers just did: shut down Lattimore.
But even if they do just that, from what USC showed against CU, the Gamecocks could still very well win the ballgame.
Such a notion would’ve seemed crazy just a few weeks ago.
But after Saturday’s performance? If it happens, nobody should be shocked.