My official Gamecock prediction thread

Yes, but will Holtz let Skip open it up?

 

lou said he was gonna leave the offense up to skip. skip ran a wide open spread out offense when he was the head coach at uconn and lead them to a shcool record 10 wins in 98.

in reality though, it doesn't matter what the scheme is if the players can't execute. it's gonna come down to pinkins making the throws and our wr's getting open and making the catches. if all you had to do was run the spread to be successful, every team would do it.

 

Agreed.

We KNOW that Williamson is a burner. Muhammed, Donning, and Thomas are all VERY talented. Just need to see what they bring to the field.

By the way, Syvelle Newton (one of the top QB's in the nation coming out of HS) is now working at WR. He ran for a 70 yard TD in scrimmage the other day.

It's all Pinkins. I've heard the hype. I know he has a cannon for an arm. He's HUGE. He's fast. He knows the system...can he do it during a REAL game? He was just OK during Florida and Clemson.

 

That's not what happened last year. Lou took over the offense and their output went south. You just can't win a lot of games with the single-wing.

 

Yep. After losses to Georgia and UVA Holtz took over. What happened? Things got REAL conservative. Since he is personally coaching the safeties this year, he SAYS he won't be involved in the O.

I expect a BIG increase in scoring this year. This is assuming that either Pinkins or Rathe is an average or better QB.

 

We went all the way to Kentucky to see Jenkins run QB draws. The fans were livid.

 

Jenkins.. ... he should've never been given the keys to the offense. I think he got picked up by Dallas, didn't he? I guess they're going to see if he can make some more of those eye-popping hits.

 

that's true but remember, jenkins came in and almost single-handedly won the game against miss state in 2001. he was excellent as a change-of-pace qb in '01. as a starter, he wasn't effective at all, but it's not like we had any other choice. pinkins and jenkins were supposed to battle it out over 2 a-days last year to determine the starting spot, but pinkins went down w/a broken ankle. also, bennet swyggert, our 3rd string qb went down for the season with a knee injury, so we were left with jenkins and 4th string walk-on qb eric kimmery.

it was obvious after the virginia game that cory jenkins couldn't play quarterback, and it was obvious that we wouldn't be able to run skip's spread offense...so we just ran qb run plays over and over and over and tried to let our defense win games. i remember them bringing in kimmery in the arkansas game and it was a disaster. not many teams can go to their 4th string quarterback.

then when pinkins came back, he was rusty and out of shape because he'ld been on crutches for weeks. he looked bad against florida but actually played fairly well against clemson.

also, jenkins was selected in the 4th round by the miami dolphins as a linebacker of all things and has actually moved into the 2-deep behind junior seau.

 

Jenkins is a great athlete, just not a great quarterback. I'm really interested in seeing how the defense does.

 

Thanks for the info on Jenkins. I'll have to watch to see if he gets playing time in the Atlanta-Miami game (Friday night, I think, might be nationally televised).

I really haven't followed the Gamecocks much in detail over the past several years....I've been in grad school for the last 3 years and only had time to follow the Panthers, but I'm looking forward to following USC more this year. Sounds like we are going to catch some folks sleeping this year, kinda like Holtz' second year (?) after the nightmare season.