What the win means for South Carolina: After two straight losses, the last one a 32-point beating by the hands of Georgia, the Gamecocks needed any win. Same story in the next UCF drive: another Holloman pick, this time returned to the Gamecocks’ 46, opened the door for the quarter’s third touchdown: a nice 35-yard Nunez to Cooper strike to make it 28-14 with the missed two-point conversion. The Gamecock defense followed that up by forcing the first punt in a first half this season on UCF’s opening drive. “I did better in the second half”.
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It appeared Nunez’s time behind center might be short, especially when his first pass sailed right to wide-open defensive back Drico Johnson, who dropped the ball – probably stunned to get that opportunity so quickly.
“It just shows that we have a lot of dog in us, a lot of fight in us”, Holloman said.
Spurrier was not sure how Nunez would fare or even if the 70-year-old coach knew how best to call plays for his skillset. “We thought he was going to throw it to Pharoh and he saw that nobody was covering August”. His brilliant 41-yard punt to start the second quarter hit an inch shy of the goal line and bounced back, where it was downed at the 2-yard line. Nunez found a wide-open August in the middle of the field to extend the lead.
Holloman again intercepted Schneider three plays later and Nunez ended things on the long scoring pass to Cooper. Things aren’t going well for Steve Spurrier’s men at all, but Pharoh Cooper may be having the worst day of anyone for South Carolina by his own doing.
UCF was dead last of 127 FBS programs in offense coming in and did nothing to change that in the game’s first 20 minutes with just 32 yards in its first four drives. For a veteran player like Cooper, that’s an absolutely abysmal mistake. Freshmenrunning backs Taj McGowan and C.J. Jones will carry the load in traditionalsets for now, after combining for 162 yards on 42 carries, while wide receiver Nick Patti, who has the Knights’ lone rushingtouchdown on the season, is used in wildcat packages. The Knights dismissed all-American Athletic Conference first-team runner William Stanback this week for what the school said was a continual violation of team rules.
“It was a tough one”, O’Leary said. “That’s why you lose games”, head coach George O’Leary said in a press release. “Last week, we took a pretty good beating”.
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“Calling so many runs and options, I said you guys (G.A. Mangus and Shawn Elliott) are a little more comfortable calling all those than I am”, Spurrier said.
