Quick Slants with Uva: Bring it on the road

As we dive into this week’s edition of Quick Slants, I keep wonder which South Carolina team will show up in Knoxville on Saturday.

Sure, outside of Florida, Tennessee hasn’t been battled tested the way the Gamecocks have through the first four weeks. But I think this game has more to do with who South Carolina is rather than the team they’re playing this weekend.

Under Shane Beamer, USC is 3-7 in SEC play on the road. Two of those wins have come against Vanderbilt, while the other was against Kentucky last season. The Gamecocks did a lot of good things last weekend, but can they carry progress that into Tennessee this week?

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1- 100 or more yards rushing

Spencer Rattler has been playing on another level going back to last year’s game against Tennessee. But as good as he’s been, there’s been one thing that stands out when the Gamecocks win: they run the football well. In that span of seven games, South Carolina has rushed for 100 yards or more just three times. Last week against Mississippi State, Week 2 against Furman, and last season against Tennessee. In those games, the Gamecocks are 3-0. Want to take a guess as to what their record is when they don’t rush for 100 yards in that same time span? 1-3.

Now look, stats don’t always paint the full picture. But in this case, I think it’s pretty clear that without a run game, even Rattler playing out of his mind doesn’t guarantee you a thing.

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Similarly to Mississippi State, Tennessee enters the game allowing 110 yards rushing per game. The only question is, do the Vols respect USC’s rushing attack enough to bring an extra guy down in the box to start the game? It took some time last week but once the Bulldogs brought an extra linebacker or a safety at times in the box, the passing lanes for Rattler began to open up that much more.

2- Communication on the OL

The lazy key this week would be, “keep Rattler upright.” We’ve said that in the past, and it goes without saying that’s what USC needs to do every week. But this week, I’m taking it to another level.

This will be the second time that South Carolina will be on the road this season in an SEC stadium. In the second half against Georgia, you could see the Bulldogs doing a lot of stunts and twists with their defensive linemen in hopes that USC’s OL would struggle to pick up the pressure. Some of those pressures in Week 3 got there. A lot of it had to did with South Carolina players not being on the same page pre-snap. Even last week at home, on some of the pressures by Mississippi State, they mixed up a few different blitz packages. A few times, MSU looked like they were sending six; DT would go but then he would drop back into coverage.

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There’s no question that Tennessee will attempt to mimic to an extent of what Georgia and Mississippi State did with their blitzes. They also be relying on the home-field advantage to make it difficult for USC’s offense to communicate pre-snap. With a pair of true freshmen on the OL, communication is improving but it still can be better. That’s not saying it’s just on the freshmen but the entire unit as they continue to build a rapport with each other.

3- Stop the run

Tennessee has a fairly balanced offense but they’ve had a lot of success in the run game. In fact, Joe Milton has the same number of passing attempts as Spencer Rattler heading into this weekend’s game (128). But unlike South Carolina, the Vols have dominated the run game. Tennessee is averaging just shy of 230 yards rushing per game, which ranks eighth best in the country.

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Last week South Carolina committed to stopping the run and they did just that. Mississippi State, who entered the game as one of the better rushing offenses in the country, was held to just 32 yards rushing. While that doesn’t excuse that struggles the Gamecocks had in the secondary on a few big plays, the pressure up front played a big reasons why USC won. That and the fact that Rattler and Xavier Legette were playing like All-Americans.

South Carolina racked up nine TFL in last week’s win with four being sacks. They wanted the Bulldogs to throw the football and they made them do just that. The unfortunate part is they made Mississippi State do exactly what they wanted them to do and outside of five-six plays, they executed fairly well. If they can make Tennessee one dimensional, they’ll be able to eliminate what’s been a successful rushing attack while also creating more opportunities to rack up TFL and sacks.

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