South Carolina 27, Missouri 24: Grading the defense

Defensive Coordinator

Dave Steckel: 5.04 (season average: 6.69)

Comments:

"...Shaw? Shaw! SCREEN! SCREEN! [sits up] SCREEN!" [wipes brow] [lies back down] "...screen? humph.. Watch the scree.." [right leg twitches]

4th and 15, you either blitz the house and force a quick throw with man coverage or you drop 8 and rush three and zone up. Instead Steck rushed four and left our backup safety vs Connor Shaw's favorite target. He put his player in position to lose and he did, just terrible that's on Steck.

Awesome first three quarters. Probably cost us the game with that whole "man to man" thing on 4th and goal.

Defense is an opportunistic with turnovers but you CANNOT rely on forcing turnovers as a defensive plan. You need to get stops. Our DB's looked lost the whole game and what happen with screen plays? Offensive should have scored twice more in the first half and your boys fell apart in the 4th. You made SC comeback as legendary as the Tyus Edney scoring for UCLA scoring over Derrick Grimm in 1995 NCAA second round.

Did not adapt to Shaw at QB and Spurrier's play calling.

Everything except the 4th quarter was really good. 8

for 3 Qtr excellent

Good playcalling the first three quarters. Not so much in the fourth and OT.

Great defensive effort, connor shaw is the devil

Great first half, but never did figure out that screen pass up the middle

Had a great plan against Thompson, couldn't figure out a way to stop Shaw for the second year in a row, though. Doesn't help his D was kept on the field damn near the entire second half.

Loved the gameplan, hated the lack of counter adjustments. Where was the amobe front late in the game coach?

Needed to make adjustments in 4th quarter to stop Shaw and to close up the middle of the field for big gains

Neeeeded to call the stop the screen pass play. Don't tell I said that.

No adjustments to the screen in the 4th.

No more Cover 2

No. no.no.no....NO! waaahhh

Not figuring out the screen game employed by Shaw was brutal

Overall good, just wished he would have blitzed the 4th & 15 if he was going to play man for that down.

Play zone defense on 4th and 15 in OT.

Played a lot of the wrong coverages

SCar had several missed opportunities on passes over the top. Couldn't manufacture much pressure

Sleeping in q4

Stop the screen....and maybe a blitz on 4th and 15???

That 4th and 15 defense was atrocious. -Mac6

That's a 9, until the 4th Quarter

The same plays kept beating us over and over.

What you did not see the middle screens all night long?? Work on up the middle screens if you are going to rush all the time.!

You can't ask for more out of defense than holding South Carolina to 17 points (before OT)

Defensive End

Michael Sam: 7.55 (season average: 7.54)
Shane Ray: 6.66 (6.67)
Markus Golden: 6.35 (7.02)
Kony Ealy: 6.27 (6.85)

Another good game getting pressure

Can't go high on them with Q4 performance. Goes for entire defense and offense for that matter.

Fantastic performance, overall

Fierce as ever but SC was able to use that against them once Shaw came in.

Golden BIG deduction for stupid roughing penalty!

Golden's Roughing the passer was completely uncalled for

Good job. SC had some huge lineman. 6'8" 341 tackle come on. What farm did this guy come off of?

Good pressure except when it counted.....

Michael Sam is still an absolute beast, I've given up on Kony Ealy, I'm not sure what he does, thanks for the fumble recovery but my goodness dude 2 tackles... so clearly your not a run stopper either. For someone who had a good amount of hype the dude was just invisible and he does this a lot. I'm ready for Shane Ray or Golden to start send him a message. Without the FR him and L'damian Washington had the same defensive stat line let that sink in...

Not much in the way of sacks

Not nearly enough pressure on the qb

Penalty hurt

Played great, but Golden pulled a bone-head play on the roughing penalty. Game would have been over but for that play.

Sam and Golden were dominant at times. Ealy didn't make any standout plays.

Sam did well as usual. 7-8s throughout the group

Sam was a beast, again. -Mac6

SC game plan seem to let the DE's blitz hard on the outsides and then there QB would just step forward in the pocket to huge running lanes for the QB if he needed them.

Shut the run down

some pressure, especially Sam and Ray with sacks.

Still the strength of our team!

Struggled against the Scar line more than i expected.

Studs minus one poor decision by Marcus.

They were solid all night. There's nothing to say about Michael Sam that hasn't been said already.

They were still great, which is why those screens worked so perfectly.

Defensive Tackle

Matt Hoch: 6.44 (season average: 6.39)
Lucas Vincent: 6.18
Harold Brantley: 5.89
Marvin Foster: 5.68
Josh Augusta: 5.48

Bottled up the running game extremely well.

Can we try dropping them into pass coverage?

Did well at run contain I suppose

didn't seem to generate much pressure on the QB

Good game, not much running room. -Mac6

Guys did a good job!!

Hooch seemed more active.Needed to get predator Shaw in the middle late in the game.

I can't remember if there was great pressure on the QB, well not in OTs so 7s it is.

Not enough pressure up the middle, but Hoch & Vincent both made a couple big plays.

Screen plays. Do I need to say more?

Solid up front! Made Mike Davis more mouse, than man!

Solid.

Studs

Stuffed the run look at mike davis numbers

Linebacker

Andrew Wilson: 6.63 (season average: 6.96)
Kentrell Brothers: 5.84 (6.65)
Donovan Bonner: 5.51 (6.30)
Darvin Ruise: 5.42 (6.11)

Andrew Wilson only goes Beast Mode.

ANDREW. WILSON. IS. THE. MAN.

Couldn't defend anything in the middle of the field

Everything was going fine until the 4th and OTs.

Good through three quarters but much less effective in 4th quarter.

Great in the run game, awful when they switched into cover 2. Not enough chips on TEs, gave free release to the slot WRs far too often.

Its a screen!!!

Lots of missed tackles from this group especially on screens

Nothing negative to say about them.

Open field issues seemed prevalent

SCREEEEEN!

Screens to Davis were killers.

Still seeing screen pass in sleep

These played hard, despite being in the wrong packages in the 4th.

Very solid...against the run.

Wilson is a beast

Wilson was top notch again. -Mac6

Your the guys who what out for the middle screens and should have stayed home to break those up!!! Tackle better!!

Cornerback

John Gibson: 5.93 (season average: 6.41)
Randy Ponder: 5.93 (6.37)
Aarion Penton: 5.89 (6.68)

4th and 15...*sigh*

4th quarter and overtime problems covering.They at times looked confused.

A brutal day for the CBs. Just because Thompson couldn't make the throws doesn't mean that the WRs weren't open -- They were. And they were open often.

Can we have EJ Gaines back?

Fine job

good for the most part but the coverage on the OT TD was bad

It's a shame that these guys had a good game until the 4th and then got picked on ruthlessly.

Not too shabby, clearly missing EJ

Ponder played well, but need EJ back. -Mac6

Poor play all game, lucky that their temp starter was inaccurate.

Shaw: 20-29 is unacceptable...

Solid

The corners where really good until shaw killed everyone

The return of EJ is anticipated.

Tough night! Watch more game film!!

Safety

Matt White: 5.37 (season average: 6.00)
Duron Singleton: 5.19 (5.89)
Braylon Webb: 5.17 (6.48)
Ian Simon: 4.71 (6.16)

Awful. Just terrible.

Bad night!! You guys were burned all night long. Learn how to play together better on coverage!!!

Close sooner and make the tackle.

Gross

need just one play more

Needed to help the CBs. Singleton good play on special teams

Ok except for forth and 15

Our safeties are bad

Photo 29...

Picked apart by Shaw. Lucky their temp starter was inaccurate all game.

Safety help disappeared towards the end.

Same as above.Looked confused late in the game

Webb was good, but the others were shaky. -Mac6

Special Teams

Andrew Baggett (kickoffs): 6.31 (season average: 7.80)
Jake Hurrell (long snapping): 5.76 (7.21)
Christian Brinser (punting): 5.49 (6.56)
Andrew Baggett (place-kicking): 3.91 (5.90)
Braylon Webb (holding): 3.05 (6.85)

27 yards....come on dude...

AHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHYYYYYYYYY

Baggett might get the heat but Webb the TV showed 2 different times the laces were toward Baggett on his missed kicks. Might think it is the holder and not the kicker in this case.

Baggett needs to keep his head up, it is not his fault his coaches did not implement in game adjustments to stop SC offensive or to move the ball against SC defense. Poor coaching put Baggett in a poor position to take the blame of a whole game that is not his fault.

Baggett should be running laps all week long... that shanked kick... terrible!!

Baggett shouldn't sweat it. The fans giving him a hard time don't know the half of it.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BRAYLON WEBB MISSED THE FIELD GOAL

Brinsers punt was nearly as bad as Baggetts missed FGs. 5s-7s for the special teams.

Can't miss two chip shots in FGs, holder had the laces out on one.

Couple bad FG's, a bad punt, holding may have been suspect, but DAMN THOSE LONG SNAPS WERE GREAT!!!

I hate to be critical, but I have to be here. Sorry Webb and Baggett. Rebound against Tennessee.

I'll just say ditto on what I anticipate the other comments will be

Kicking problem-- whose fault?

Laces Out!!

Laces out??

Laces. Out.

Need better punting and obviously laces

One team and one fan base; as long as these boys wer the Black and Gold....I support them 100%

Pinkel should feel ashamed for letting the game slip through his hands and for the kicker to take media blame.

Pinkel--0

Special teams did not do much to help us on Saturday night at all.

UGH!

Was the holder or kicker responsible for that last miss? -Mac6

We needed to score a TD in the 2nd overtime anyway. That game was lost on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and Goal--from the 8 yard line.

WEBBBBBBB

You don't want to rag on Baggett too much, but a kicker has to make those kicks