Unit makes key fourth quarter stops to seal victory
"Good defenses show what they're made of," the senior defensive end recalled telling his teammates in the huddle. "Good defenses love times like this, because this is where they can show what they're really made of.
"If you can't stop nobody or make them turn the ball over right here, we can't call ourselves a good defense."
To Ingram's satisfaction and Carolina's relief, the much-maligned unit rose to the occasion and did both, saving the Gamecocks from what would have been 1984 redux.
"We stopped them at the end," said coach Steve Spurrier, who spent a good deal of his weekly radio show railing on the defense. "When the game was on the line, our guys stopped them."
After Marcus Lattimore put the Gamecocks up by a field goal on his third touchdown run of the night, the USC defense stifled the Midshipmen, sending them backward. Navy was forced to punt from the Navy 27 with about 10 minutes left in the game.
Then, after a USC drive stalled at the Navy 5 on a failed fourth-down pitch to Lattimore, spur linebacker Antonio Allen intercepted Navy quarterback Kriss Proctor's pass around midfield with a minute left to ice the victory — one that came in large part because of the Carolina defense, not in spite of it.
Does the USC defense still have issues? Yes, it has them "everywhere," as Spurrier said. It still gave up 781 total yards, 508 of which were passing, and 79 combined points in its first two games. And Navy more or less did whatever it wanted in this game out of the triple option, racking up 274 yards on the ground.
But if the unit is ever going to improve, it has to start somewhere. The final two defensive series were as good a place to start as any. Navy very easily could have won this game and taken the Gamecocks' hopes and dreams back to Annapolis, Md., with them, giving a new generation of Carolina fans a soul-crushing defeat to call their own. But that didn't happen because the defense answered its critics and stopped Navy when it was "do or die," as Ingram called the late series.
"We've just got to show up and play," said Allen of the criticism. "We did what we had to do and showed up when it was time to."
Obviously, this performance was by no means a cure-all for the unit. Rome wasn't built in a day. Third downs were still an issue, as the Midshipmen converted nine of 14 such tries. Sure, some of that can be attributed to the style of offense the Midshipmen run and the frequent manageable yards-to-go situations they find themselves in.
"They're going to be about 60, 80 percent on those," said assistant head coach for defense Ellis Johnson said. "That's what their offense is. It's designed to always be able to get 3 yards."
But USC still was beaten through the air on a third-and-10 in the third quarter (Proctor to Bo Snelson for 33 yards) and a fourth-and-15 in the game's final moments when Proctor hit Matt Aiken for 16 yards and a first down to prolong Navy's upset bid a bit longer before Allen's interception.
Both were examples of what Johnson called USC's "biggest" defensive problem — its "terrible" third-down pass defense — rearing its head. The need to focus solely on Navy's option attack in practice made matters worse and prevented USC from working on that weakness for about 10 days.
"We have not worked on what we're bad at," Johnson said. "We have not worked on third-down coverage."
The last time USC played pass defense, in its 45-42 win at Georgia, "most of the time we didn't play it very well," Johnson said. The same was the case against East Carolina in Charlotte. But, as Spurrier noted, the Gamecocks finally found some last period defense in this one.
Ingram said he hopes the unit can build on its performance down the stretch.
"It was just another stepping stone for us," he said. "We try to go out and get better every week, and we feel like we got a little better (tonight)."
Johnson wasn't as sure, saying he needed to see the film in order to make any assessments. He certainly won't see any improvement in the pass defense department, given how rarely Navy passed and how successful it was when it did.
But, Johnson said, he hopes to see what he feels can be learned from playing a triple-option team — discipline in assignments and solid tackling. USC lacked both in its first two outings.
"Hopefully we'll take something from [the game]," Johnson said.
If anything, the Gamecocks can take away the fact they made plays on defense when they had to. If USC is going to win the Southeastern Conference, the defense has to improve by leaps and bounds. The fourth quarter against Navy was a step in the right direction.
More Like This
Column: Defensive newcomers who must contribute in 2017
By Pete Helms | April 19, 2017