Onward & Upward - South Carolina Recap

Well, back to the drawing board, but I'm reminded that a bunch, well, ALL, our goals are ahead of us.  I'm finally dry and rested from that crazy weekend.  Weather delays both Friday and Saturday nights. 

• The more I thought about the 1st and goal call the less it bothered me.  It's easy to say in hindsight to pound it 3 times with Gurley, but had we done that 3 times in a row to no avail, we'd have all complained that we couldn't do something more creative and we probably should have put it in the air one time.  Play calling is a bear.  You don't plan on getting a 10-yard penalty on a play call.  If Hutson sails it out of the end zone or far out of Quayvon & any defender's reach and we have 2nd and 4, none of us think it's a bad call.  I know you're risking a sack, but we've scored P.A. inside the 5 a million times under Richt/Bobo.  We did it in Jax in '07 after KM came out a few plays. We inserted him in and proceeded to fake it to him and hit Chapas or Southerland for a score.
• Even with a 10 yard sack, you figure your all-SEC kicker makes a 28 yarder.
• Overall, my bigger gripe on offense would be to see Gurley with 30 carries instead of 20.  There will be a few games this season that's necessary.  This was one. Mizzou is one.  Auburn is one.  Keep him fresh in the games we don't need it, but we should have given him more touches.
• Boy, they had our screens snuffed out.
• We need to get Sony and Izzy the ball more.
• Perhaps Leonard will re-think any NFL notions he might have had. That was an NFL-Big Boy O-line he was up against and they handled him.  Probably the most disappointing thing was that we couldn't get pressure on Thompson.  That would have changed the whole thing.
• Our secondary is just bad and untalented.  We need a couple 5-star corners, and they ain't coming until January.  But we will improve.  The next 3 teams are much worse and we'll need some time to get better and gain confidence.  Pruitt said he's never coached a bad secondary.  Well, he is now.  My guess is he knows that.  We're a druggie in rehab on D, boys.  We're healing, but it's going to take time to un-learn some bad habits and harmful addictions.  We're in therapy, but it will take time.  My hope is we get better enough for Mauk at Mizzou, who floats a lot of passes and doesn't have Mike Davis to lean on.  That's the focus now.
• Boy, Jeb Blazevich.  That kid is going to be AWESOME.  I don't mean to use hyperbole, but he really has the chance to be the best TE we've ever had.  He is incredibly athletic, runs great routes, unbelievable hands, looks like he enjoys having his hand on the ground.  He's going to be fun to watch.
• I love, love, love Conley and Bennett.  They are NOT #1 receivers, and it's killing us.  WE. CAN'T. GET. OPEN.  From the upper deck, there were several times Hutson just had no where to go with the ball.  We can't get 26 and 86 back soon enough.
• Proud of our D-line.  I like that bunch.  And Ramik and Amarlo are playing strong.  With a little improvement on the back end, our D could look a whole lot better.
• I'd like to see Izzy return every punt this week.
• The cocks got the ball back with 4:24.  The most disappointing thing was that we didn't get the ball back to our O.  We had plenty of time.  I actually told Teddy it wasn't all that bad we missed the FG.  Spurrier got conservative there and we couldn't stop them.  I was thinking it might be best and score a TD with 10 secs left instead of 4 min left.
• I think if we get the measurement at the end of the game we win in regulation.  We had 1:22 left and 2 timeouts at the 50.  We could have actually ran Gurley some.

The outlook:

• Funniest scenario of all is for us and USCe to win out and beat them for the national championship
• You know, Auburn's sieve of a defense got smoked in week 4 last year at Baton Rouge.  It was their toughest road game, and they rebounded a few weeks later with a big win in College Station that really turned around their season.  I don't think we get punished much (and the polls show that) for a 3-point loss in Columbia.  It was by far our toughest road game.  We lost by an inch.
• It's shaping up to be a crazy season.  Very 2007ish.  5 of the top 10 are from the West, so they're bound to lose.  Look at 13-25.  A lot of teams already have a loss.  UGA, USCe, USC, Clemson, Mich. St., Ohio St., Wisconsin, Stanford.  A bunch of power teams who can and will compete for their conference titles.  Arizona St. and UCLA play next week.  Down goes another.  K-State and Auburn this week. 
• I could totally see Clemson going and beating FSU this Saturday.  I think playing in the environment in Athens helps Clemson a lot in that game.  I just think it's a crazy year.  I think a 2-loss conference champion might get in that playoff simply because there won't be enough 1-loss teams to go around.  Just feels that way.
• South Carolina is not going to win out.  Too hard of a schedule.  @ Florida and @ Auburn.  Mizzou and UT at home.  @ Clemson.  I think they drop two more.  One will be a conference game.

We just need to take care of business, win the next game in front of us and score 1,000 points on Florida.