The Verdict: South Carolina must make Clemson feel the pressure

South Carolina football superfan and lawyer Chris Paschal writes a column for Gamecock Central called “The Verdict.”

The Verdict: South Carolina must make Clemson feel the pressure 

The 119^th rendition of the Carolina-Clemson game has a lot on the line. On the Clemson sideline, the Tigers will be fighting for their College Football Playoff lives. On the Carolina sideline, a chance to end one of the uglier losing streaks in the rivalry. Which sideline would you rather be on? Which sideline will be feeling more pressure? 

If I was a Clemson fan (and I thank God every day that I am not), I would not feel a shred of pressure heading into this game. And from talking to the few Clemson fans I can stomach this time of year, there is a certain level of confidence mixed with arrogance.

A cup of confidence, a heaping spoonful of arrogance, and a dash of cockiness (all stirred by a “holier than thou” attitude) is how you make the Clemson fan cocktail. While choking down this cocktail, try to really embrace the spirit by working in some Clemson fan conversation starters. Those include: “you really don’t know where Clemson is?” or “the real Carolina is in Chapel Hill and the real USC is in California” or, my personal favorite, “BYOG – bring your own guts!” … but I digress.

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Needless to say, Clemson fans, especially around this time of the year, are unbearable. Added to this year’s Clemson cocktail was the incessant need to remind Carolina fans that Spencer Rattler was not all that he had been made out to be. That is, of course, until the week before he and the Carolina Gamecocks were slotted to play the Tigers. 

For the entire season, Carolina fans have clamored for a simpler, faster paced, more aggressive offensive game plan. And that’s exactly what we saw as the Gamecocks utterly dismantled one of the most deserving teams to be dismantled in college football history. (You know Tennessee fans were outrageously over-the-top and obnoxious this season if I truly have disliked them more than Clemson fans.)  

But what last week’s game proved is something I have been saying both privately and publicly this entire season: college football is still a 60-minute game, and the college football season is still 12 games long. If you tuned into sports talk radio, or if you read the message boards on this site, or God forbid you scrolled through Twitter, you would have thought multiple times throughout this season that Carolina had the worst team in all of college football. (My personal favorite is a radio personality saying that Shane Beamer was running a “losing program” and that he gaslighted this fanbase.) 

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As I said a couple of weeks ago, the rebuilding of this football program is not like playing a video game. You don’t get to rig the system and quit every time something goes wrong and get a do-over. This is a serious rebuild in the toughest football conference in America. After the Georgia game, would you have thought Carolina would be 7-4 heading into the Clemson game? Again, it is a long season (even though it goes by in a blink), and each game takes a full 60 minutes to play. Which leads us to this year’s reenactment of one of the most heated in-state rivalries in all of collegiate athletics. 

Like many of you, I am not convinced Carolina is going to win, but I’m also not convinced Carolina is going to lose.

I am convinced, however, that I know how Carolina wins this game.

Yet again, while all the focus has been on this Gamecock offense, I am focused on this defense. Clemson football has a stable of running backs led by North Carolina-native Will Shipley. And while it’s a bit banged up, Clemson also has an offensive line that likes to push defenses around, wear them down in the second half, and look at the box score in post-game and grin.

Clemson averages 186 rushing yards per game. And as Wes and Chris have discussed this week, around this time of the year Clemson runs their quarterback. This is a strong rushing attack that Carolina must stop. We failed to stop Florida. We failed to stop Arkansas. We must load the box and stop the Clemson rushing attack. 

Much like the Tennessee game, Carolina must trust Smith, Dial, and Rush to cover some of the best wide receivers in the country. What Smith did to Hyatt, he must also do to Antonio Williams. If Carolina can find a way to slow Clemson’s rushing attack down, Clemson quarterback DJ Uiagalelei will have to make throws to win Clemson the game. Let me make this perfectly clear: Uiagalelei can make any throw on the field and can pick apart a defense. Many think that if Carolina can hold their own against Clemson’s rushing attack, the Gamecocks will win the game. That’s not necessarily true. Uiagalelei is capable of winning this game for Clemson. 

But this Carolina pass defense is also capable of winning this game. Carolina has no shot to win the game if Clemson can run the ball. Carolina does have a shot if the game comes down to Uiagalelei. 

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And that’s all Carolina needs. Clemson has not lost to Carolina in Memorial Stadium since 2012. A full decade. And during this hellish losing streak, most games have not been close. At the beginning of this piece, I asked which sideline would be feeling more pressure. If this game is close in the fourth quarter, the pressure will be on the Tiger sideline. If this game is coming down to the final possessions, the pressure will be on this Clemson offense. 

Behind the Clemson brashness and cockiness, Clemson fans know that this streak eventually will come to an end. If Clemson can run the ball and control the lines of scrimmage, this game will be over by halftime. But if Carolina can make this a four-quarter game, the thought of losing will creep into the back of the minds of this Clemson team and staff. If Carolina has a shot, we must make the Tigers start to doubt. 

Hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving. Go Cocks. Beat Clemson. 

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