Carolina Announces Arrival In Opening Night Romp

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The Whitney Hotel?  What Whitney Hotel?  And what quarterback controversy?

It’s a long way to Atlanta, but for one night at least it appeared that South Carolina might just be battle ready after all.  Distractions or not.

The Gamecocks’ 41-13 romp over Southern Miss was as impressive as it was unlikely.  Up until 6pm ET last night — an hour and a half before kickoff — the Cocks were preparing to play without 12 players (including freshman running back Marcus Lattimore).  Those 12 had not been with the team since Wednesday.  Talk about off-field worries.  But the NCAA finally sent word that 10 of the 12 could play (Chris Culliver and Jarriel King were ruled out).  The Cocks then survived some early struggles and eventually mopped the floor with the visitors from Hattiesburg. 

Some observations:

* Carolina looked shaky on offense to begin the game.  Two plays for minus yardage and an incomplete pass (when Stephen Garcia took a hit) were all USC had to show for its first series.  To make matters worse, Southern Miss put together a deep drive of its own… until Carolina picked off a pass inside its 20 yard line.  From that point on, things changed.

* The most impressive part of the debut was… the offensive line.  Under their third coach in as many years, the unit struggled on the opening drive and then got called for back-to-back false starts following USC’s drive-stopping interception.  After that the protection for Stephen Garcia improved and there were running lanes to be found for Lattimore.  Carolina rushed for 224 yards.  And that’s a whole lot better than the Cocks’ performance on the ground last year.

* Stephen Garcia looked like a poised veteran.  He was 16 of 23 for 193 yards.  He had two touchdown runs and did not take a sack.  It’s too soon to say that USC’s quarterback issues are behind them — we all know that Spurrier can fire up the QB merry-go-round at any moment — but Garcia did his part to earn some trust from his coach and the fans.  Garcia was solid in 2009.  Not great, but certainly not as bad as the offseason ripping he received from Spurrier suggested.  Even those in Columbia who initially believed the coach was just motivating his QB had come to believe that Spurrier really was down on Garcia.  And he might be again.  But for one night it looked like Carolina has one key ingredient that the other teams in the East don’t have — an experienced, proven quarterback.  Garcia might not yet be Joe Montana, but if the plays as he did last night he can take the Cocks to some new heights in 2010.

* I’m sure folks will be praising Spurrier’s play-calling this morning.  A pitch off of a reverse led to a 52-yard gain by freshman Ace Sanders and set up a USC touchdown, for example.  But play-calling gets too much blame in losses and too much credit in victories.  More impressive was Carolina’s execution for much of the evening.

* Carolina’s defense was back on its heels as Southern Miss made a long first quarter march, but then Ellis Johnson’s unit began to play as though an alarm clock had gone off.  (Or maybe a rooster had crowed.)  Again, it was one game, but the USC defense appears to be solid once again.  If the offense can continue to be balanced, effective and smart with the football, Atlanta should not be ruled out as a possible longshot destination.  And I don’t mean for the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

* Just as the SEC benefits from having Alabama on top in football and Kentucky on top in basketball, it’s good pub for the league when Steve Spurrier is making comments like this:  “We had 41 points with 11 minutes left.  They sort of milked the clock on us.  I was thinking, maybe, for the first time, we might score 50.  We need to score 50 sometime.”  The media loves Spurrier.  If his sixth Carolina team can finally take a step forward then you can bet he’ll start to run his mouth a bit more.  That’ll mean even more eyes and ears on the SEC, which is good for everybody’s recruiting.  As I’ve said in the past, an SEC title game between South Carolina and Ole Miss someday would do wonders for showing that the SEC truly is the strongest, deepest conference in America.  (To those 8 or 9 people who still don’t believe.)

* Finally, last night might serve as a good wake-up call for LSU’s players.  South Carolina has been dealing with players missing practice, a bit of a quarterback debate, and the possibility that the NCAA would banish 12 players from last night’s game.  Rather than fall apart amid the controversies, USC fought like a wounded animal.  That can happen.  And with North Carolina going through similar distractions (as many as 16 Tar Heels are in NCAA limbo), LSU might want to take note of how the other Carolina responded to such matters.  Some teams fold when faced with distractions.  Others come together.  Last night, South Carolina came together.  LSU should be prepared as though North Carolina will do the same.  USC’s performance could be a great help to Les Miles as he tries to prepare his team to face a UNC team that everyone is counting out.

* Anybody else looking forward to the South Carolina-Georgia game?