A ‘Mac’ truck gone wild
Take heart, South Carolina fans. The Gamecocks don’t have to play against Darren McFadden next week.Just the Florida Gators.
But that’s next week. Right now, USC’s defense is still trying to get the number of that Mac truck – it’s 5, by the way – that just ran for 323 yards against a proud unit that has prided itself on playing hard and keeping the Gamecocks in games all year, no matter how bad the offense was.
For one night, it was the other way around. Steve Spurrier’s offense seems to have found a rhythm, but was begging for just one defensive stop that never came against Arkansas.
It was, in short, an embarrassing night for South Carolina’s defense.
Of course, the Gamecocks shouldn’t be too hard on themselves. McFadden can do that to anybody. And – let’s face it – USC’s rush defense has been suspect at its best this year and bad the rest of the time. That's just what McFadden does to such defenses. And it certainly doesn’t help when your best player – in this case leading tackler Emanuel Cook – spends most of the second half on the bench with an injury. Not that it would have mattered for USC on Saturday.
But overall, the defense has been able to keep the Gamecocks in every game and now some questions arise.
The most obvious one is simply this: Is South Carolina all of a sudden that bad on defense?
The answer’s probably no. McFadden is just that good.
But we must remember this: The psyche of most college football teams is unstable on a good day.
Whether USC can bounce back from McFadden’s drubbing psychologically might be the most important question the Gamecocks have had to answer this season.
Posted by on 11/04 at 12:38 AM
