Another painful loss for the good guys. We've improved significantly since last season, but still frustrating to lose games like this. Here are my thoughts.
Offense
Tyson Helton. Helton has been a favorite scapegoat for fans this season, but this game more than any other showcases that he's a very good OC. Helton outschemed Muschamp's D consistently thorughout this game. This is the best offensive gameplan I can remember seeing for a UT team in a long while. Combine that with what we saw against Auburn and I'm pretty happy with Helton. To the extent that we've struggled on offense this season, it's had little to do with Helton. All in all, he's had a good 3 weeks at OC. Hope he sticks around.
JG. This week, we heard the familiar criticism that JG is poor at reading defenses, but JG didn't really play to script. He did a great job reading the D, recognizing the blitz, and taking advantage of weaknesses. Yet, he had quite a few balls sail on him, which is atypical for JG. He struggled on the last drive with timing, as well. Overall, not a bad game for JG, but also not a great game. I'd give him a "B-" for this one, but still encouraged by his overall improvement in reading defenses. I heard on radio show that conjecture is JG is not fully healed from the Bama beatdown physically.
Jordan + Chandler. Both Jordan and Chandler played great games. Jordan in particular managed to find ways to get yards on plays where he wasn't really give much. I think both of these guys are among the most underrated SEC RBs right now. They are finding ways to get yards with little help from the O-line. I don't think these backs are elite, serviceable maybe. Need more help with bigger/faster guys.
Fils-Aime. I've generally felt that Pruitt's decisions on players have made sense, but I've gotta question why we weren't using CFA at RB before now. In any case, he had a great game and Tyson Helton took full advantage of his skill set. Bravo to CFA and Helton. I feel bad for him. Seems like he was the one who was the odd man out. Would be a great story if he could have four good games to finish the season.
Pass blocking. The O-line has continued to improve on pass blocking, but still overall far short of where they need to be. Nevertheless, it's encouraging that they are getting better. I expected the o-line to completely fall apart with the loss of Trey Smith. The overall blocking seemed to be as good from the view of a non-professional like myself.
O-line penalties. On the other hand, the O-line penalties were maddening! How many false starts did we have? Look, I get that Butch left a mess at OL; not enough depth; not enough strength; but this coaching staff needs to get a handle on the penalties. This was a 3-point game and we could've easily won it without the penalties. Ridiculous at this time of the season to have those penalties. Baffling personally as to why they are happening.
Scheming away from O-line weaknesses. Already said Helton did an excellent job, but he really pulled out every trick in the book to scheme around the O-line's weaknesses in run blocking.
Overall offense. Lots of room for improvement on offense, but overall, I thought offense was pretty good this game. It was a solid "B+" A B+ effort wins that game in my opinion. I gotta knock them down to C+ because of the terrible penalties.
Defense
Ugh. On the other hand, the defense was just awful the entire 2nd Half plus that last SC drive in the 1st Half. At some point, Bryan McClendon figured out a weak point in the defense and hammered it relentlessly. South Carolina ran for 224 yards on us, averaging 5.6 yards per carry, and I'd wager to guess those stats are much worse if you look at them only after we took a 14-3 lead. From that point on, South Carolina just obliterated our defense nearly every drive. Can you say lack of depth? This will be a story the remainder of this season. Someone better step up on whatever is left of that two deep. Otherwise, next week may be our last "W".
Bituli. In spite of our defensive ineptitude, we did have some guys with big games. Bituli was responsible for the pass deflection that resulted in a Shy Tuttle interception. Bituli also should've been credited with a fumble recovery on the one play that the refs screwed up.
Other Things
Bad calls by refs are a consistent theme. I don't think I've ever seen a season where we've been on the wrong end of so many awful calls. We should've had a fumble recovery; instead South Carolina scores a TD because the refs somehow didn't notice that the ball carrier lost the ball almost as soon as he touched it. The defensive pass interference call that lead to a field goal for South Carolina was also terrible. I haven't complained too much about the bad calls, because it really didn't make a difference in games we were getting blown out, but it may have very well handed this game to South Carolina. (And Auburn had a chance late because of a terrible touchdown call that was actually an INT).
Recruiting. It's obvious to anyone we need help at O-line, but I think we need help on D-line even more. Our run D has been awful and we're losing several Seniors (Tuttle, Bain, Johnson, Phillips). We're improving on pass D as the season goes along, but Pruitt's biggest challenge right now is going to be to figure out how to make this run D competitive. If we can't stop teams from running *WHEN WE KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO RUN*, we're not going to win many games. Sadly, this has been true for years. Good thing that Pruitt is defensive minded coach. He can't be happy with the results of Saturday night, and if anyone can get a little more out of those guys, I would think he's the person to do it. Recruiting needs are all over the place - O-line, D-line, QB, RB, LB; did I leave out an area?
Bowl game. As annoyed as I was at SEC Network for constantly showing the bowl game graphic, this loss hurts our chances substantially. We now need to beat Charlotte next week and then win 2 out of 3 against Kentucky, Mizzou, and Vandy. It's do-able, but it will not be easy. We will need some help to win 2 of 3 SEC games. Vandy is a winnable game straight up with no help but it's by no means a gimme. Kentucky and Missouri will be as big a favorite as USCe was.
Overall takeaways. This is a tricky game to analyze. We saw significant improvement in some areas, but our run D was horrendous! .South Carolina has not even been that good at running the ball. If SC can run that well on us, Kentucky and Mizzou could absolutely eat us alive! Also the O-line penalties continue to hurt us badly. While not as obvious as the porous run D, it's entirely conceivably that the O-line penalties cost us anywhere from 3 - 14 points.
The Big Picture. In spite of our frustrations in this game, important to keep the big picture in mind. 1st year coaches are almost never successful. Even the all-time greats have struggled in the 1st season (Saban, Carroll, Stoops, etc, etc, etc). As much as I want to see improvement week to week and during this last month of the season, ultimately, we'll get a better sense of what kinda coach Pruitt is during the offseason (recruiting) and during Years 2 and 3. Year #1 very rarely tells you much about how a coach will perform in the long-run. We have a very uneasy fan base on the brink of losing faith entirely. That is my biggest concern. People like me who have had enough waiting until next year. Will they give Pruitt the opportunity? I don't see another option personally.
That's it for this week. I enjoy your comments as they bring up lots of discussion.
GBO!
