Front Porch Football

Who’s To Blame

by Chris Paschal

After writing the title to this post I sat for ten minutes and just stared at the screen. There really isn’t anything that can justify what happened in Bank of America Stadium. What an ugly, embarrassing, shocking, bad loss. It was an unacceptable loss. It was the kind of loss that stays with you. South Carolina could go out there and whip Alabama, Georgia, and Clemson and this loss would still sting.

The loss itself wasn’t even what stunk the most. In a vacuum, yes, getting upset by North Carolina ticks me off, but it’s more of the fact that after waiting over eight months for the start of the season it ended just like that. Losing to North Carolina ended this South Carolina season before it even got started.

Not surprisingly, when you lose a game like that, there will be a lot of questions and lot of opinions. I will offer mine in this post. Take what I am saying to heart. You don’t have to agree. In fact, you can think I am completely wrong, but know that this isn’t some pissed off rant. This isn’t a drunken tweet. This is coming from a guy that always sees things (when it comes to football) as the glass being half-full. With that said, this was a really bad loss for South Carolina.

Who Isn’t to Blame

The Offensive Line

There were some new, young faces along that offensive line. They run blocked pretty well. Where most people are upset with was the pass protection. That should not be put entirely on the offensive line’s shoulders. Going into this game, multiple South Carolina friends of mine (and multiple Gamecock media pundits) scoffed at North Carolina’s new defensive coordinator, Jay Bateman. “Sure, he put up good numbers as Army’s defensive coordinator, but Army’s defense really didn’t play anybody tough and their offense held the ball so much that the defense really was hardly on the field.” I heard that type of logic (or some similar type of conversation) throughout this past week.

Hopefully now my friends understand what I meant when I said that Bateman is the real deal. I watched a ton of Jay Bateman’s defenses at Army (my father, a West Point graduate, proselytized me and my brother at a young age into being Army Football fans). Bateman is a fan of confusing offenses. He is very creative in his blitz packages and his pass coverages.

With a freshman at center, and young pieces scattered throughout the offensive line, this was already going to be a tough matchup for South Carolina. The offensive line giving up three sacks (and having trouble communicating) is not the reason South Carolina lost this football game. Overall, this was a solid opening effort that should only improve.

Who Is to Blame