Missed second-half opportunities doom South Carolina in opening loss
The story of South Carolina’s loss to North Carolina can be summed up in a five-play stretch to start the second half.
The Gamecocks–trailing by just three at that moment–surprised the Tar Heels with an onside kick, recovering it at essentially stealing a possession. That’s play one.
The next four plays were far less productive.
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South Carolina mustered just six yards thanks to three incompletions and a six-yard Dakereon Joyner rush, turning the ball over on downs. North Carolina scored six plays later to push the deficit to 10 points. The Tar Heels never trailed by fewer than two scores the rest of the game.
That spurt–with the score going from 17-14 North Carolina to 24-14–was a microcosm of an opportunity-wasting day for the Gamecocks.
“Frustrating because you’re right. we had our chances,” Shane Beamer said. “(We) gave ourselves chances, but, you know, just not good enough…It’s kind of the story of the night.”
South Carolina had four possessions where the offense got the ball after either a North Carolina turnover, onside kick or interception. The Gamecocks got just three points out of those with two turnovers on downs and a punt.
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They averaged 6.8 plays and 21.8 yards per drive with an average time of possession of just 151 seconds. Most of that is skewed by a 12-play, 62-yard drive that ended in a field goal.
The Gamecocks also had three drives in the second half that ended inside the North Carolina 22 yard line with just three points to show for it.
“Just beating ourselves. We had so many just shooting ourselves in the foot,” Spencer Rattler said. “Holding calls, wrong formations, dropped balls, missed throws. I mean, just stuff like that. Shooting ourselves in the foot. We beat ourselves.”
The Gamecocks got into the red zone five times Saturday with three scores–all 17 points came in the red zone–but had two empty trips that could have swung the game or made things more interesting late.
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“I thought we had an efficient night in the passing game. I don’t know what the percentages were, but I feel like we were efficient. We’re explosive,” Spencer Rattler said. “We just had to finish in the red zone. You know, we’ll clean up a few things, but offensively I thought we played a solid game. We just got to finish in the red zone.”
The biggest what-if in the second half was that onside kick where South Carolina failed to capitalize on that created momentum. If that drive ends in points, the Gamecocks are either tied or leading early in the second half.
But–after a poor throw on third down–Rattler found Ahmarean Brown at the sticks for a first but Brown turned and ran without the ball and it resulted in an incompletion.
“We had a play and again,” Beamer said. “A self-inflicted mistake where we got a guy wide open and aren’t able to convert on fourth down.”
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The biggest of those moments in the first half was in the second quarter after North Carolina stalled out deep in Gamecocks territory, turning the ball over on downs with the score tied 7-7.
The next drive was a three-and-out. South Carolina lost a yard on the drive with it ending in a sack.
“We had a fourth down that we didn’t we didn’t convert,” Rattler said. “There are a few moments throughout the game where we could have really taken it over.”
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