South Carolina run defense non-existent on Saturday night in Gainesville
South Carolina’s run defense has been suspect all season, and Saturday the cracks turned into a chasm.
The Gamecocks’ run defense was abysmal–to put it lightly–on Saturday night, giving up a whopping 374 rushing yards to Florida in their 38-6 loss.
This is the first time since 2020 that South Carolina has given up over 300 rushing yards, and the first time since 2015 it has given up over 370.
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Florida got the ball moving early and compiled 281 of those 374 yards in the second half alone.
“They went up and down on us in the first quarter,” Shane Beamer said.
The Gators scored three touchdowns on their first three drives of the game, and Trevor Etienne’s 85-yard touchdown rush was the epitome of the team getting run “up and down” the field.
Most of Florida’s rush yards – 249 to be exact – came in chunk plays, with 10 plays going for more than 10 yards. Five of those runs were at least 20 yards.
“The defense has got to get off the field too,” Beamer said. “You give up 374 yards rushing, we’ve got to be better at creating turnovers and we didn’t do a great job of that.”
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South Carolina did in fact have trouble getting off the field on third downs. The Gators converted 60 percent of their third down attempts. Six of Florida’s nine third-down conversions came via a run play, and on those plays, it totaled 72 yards and averaged eight yards a carry.
Debo Williams said the lack of success on third downs was a key point in the loss and that the Gamecocks were in several situations where they could’ve changed the game if they had gotten off the field.
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“We could have been three and out in the first series and then in the second series too,” Williams said. “We gotta get off the field on third downs, so if we can do that we’ll be just fine.”
South Carolina almost allowed Florida to leave with three different 100-yard rushers Saturday but ended up only allowing two Gators to do so.
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Montrell Johnson Jr., carried the ball 24 times and ran for 161 yards. He averaged 6.7 yards per game and had a touchdown as well.
Etienne finished 100 yards even, though most came from the 85-yard touchdown. Richardson would have ended the game with over 100 yards, but a late sack knocked him below the century mark and he finished with 96 yards and a touchdown.
Richardson was hard to bring down the entire night, using his ability to break tackles to land five of those explosive plays on the ground. His longest rush on the night was 23 yards.
“He’s definitely a great athlete…kudos to him and his team,” Williams said.
