Sure, everybody’s talked about stopping the run to win against Georgia, but it’s Will Muschamp who’s got the secret victory sauce.
From the looks of Javon Kinlaw’s Twitter account, South Carolina’s defensive game plan for Saturday’s showdown with No. 2 Georgia already has been completely installed.
“Brush your teeth physical this week,” the Gamecocks sophomore defensive tackle posted on his social media account Tuesday.
Kinlaw put the statement in quotes, indicating he had heard it from someone this week. South Carolina coach Will Muschamp wouldn’t confess to being that someone, but it sounds like the kind of thing Muschamp would say, especially with his team on the verge of playing one of the country’s most bruising running games.
“You’ve got to have a physical mindset in this ballgame,” Muschamp said. “You’ve got to understand that part of it. Everything you do, you be physical. So I appreciate him listening well.”
Evidently the rest of the SEC, as well as Notre Dame, has failed to pick on that. It’s not enough to object to Georgia running the ball. You’ve got to strenuously object.
A stat from Georgia’s last game:
4 Rushing TDs were scored by Georgia in its 42-7 victory over Florida on Saturday — the same number of rushing TDs that the Gators had given up in their first six games of the season. On Saturday, Sony Michel scored on runs of 74 and 45 yards, Elijah Holyfield scored on a 39-yard run and Nick Chubb scored on a 6-yard run for Georgia. The Bulldogs’ 292 rushing yards more than doubled the 143.3 per game that Florida averaged yielding in its first six games.
South Carolina’s already given up eight rushing touchdowns, so they probably won’t match the Gators’ futility in that department. The ‘Cocks do rank higher than UF in rushing defense going into the game; then again, playing Georgia can wreck a defense’s stats.