Clowney goes up against strong left tackle
With South Carolina traveling to Orlando to take on UCF, here are five things to look out for when watching the game.
1. Blake Bortles, UCF quarterback — Bortles will be one of the top five quarterbacks the Gamecocks will have to face this season when it is all said and done. The redshirt junior is a prototypical 6-foot-4-inch, 230-pound quarterback who has thrown for 816 yards, seven touchdowns and only one interception in three games so far. Bortles has the talent of Aaron Murray, who torched the South Carolina defense earlier in the year. The Florida native is also a proven signal caller after completing nearly 63 percent of his passes for more than 3,000 yards, 25 touchdowns and only seven interceptions in his first full season last year. It will be interesting to see how he handles a SEC defense and whether the Gamecocks have learned from the debacle at Georgia.
2. Jadeveon Clowney vs. Torrian Wilson — If you think that the South Carolina defensive line is going to out-muscle the UCF offensive line, you may be in for a surprise. Left tackle Torrian Wilson is a 300-pound-plus preseason All-American Athletic Conference second-team player and will be going up against the All-American defensive end. It will be a hot one in Orlando this weekend and everyone knows about what happened the last time Clowney played in hot weather. Wilson is no slouch, but he has never faced anyone with as much talent as Clowney. That will be a good matchup throughout the game. Wilson is sure to have help, however. It’s hard to imagine the Knights leaving him one-on-one with Clowney.
3. South Carolina defense — The Gamecock defense has been a question mark throughout the season. They showed considerable improvement against Vanderbilt, but this weekend they will be facing a balanced UCF attack. Running back Storm Johnson has 305 yards and six touchdowns in three games to go along with Bortle’s impressive statistics. The Knights are averaging nearly 37 points per game and over 457 yards of total offense. One thing in particular to watch is the young South Carolina linebacking core. That unit will get a boost with the expected return of Cedrick Cooper, but they will still have their work cut out for them.
4. Special teams — This area of the team was embarrassing to watch against the Commodores. There were two turnovers on the unit and no one has been close to breaking out a long kick or punt return this season. The first thing to watch for is whether the returners will even bring the ball out of the endzone. Spurrier has said in the last couple of weeks that he has considered telling his players to just kneel the ball if they catch it in the endzone. This should be a close game, so any turnover could be the difference between a win or loss for the Gamecocks.
5. Crowd — This could possibly be the biggest home game in the history of the UCF program. The game is a sellout and the stadium is sure to be rocking. Those 60,000 students would love nothing better than to knock off a top-15 team. The Gamecocks have historically played a lot better at home than on the road and South Carolina has to be careful not to underestimate the atmosphere in Orlando.