South Carolina football: 5 biggest takeaways from the Garnet and Black Game

[FeatheredCock]

All eyes were on Spencer Rattler, but South Carolina showed several flashes of talent, including a MarShawn Lloyd spin move, as the crowd of 20,671 had plenty to enjoy on Saturday night.

At a time when the Gamecocks handed out their player awards for the spring, Rattler received the Offensive Player of the Spring, and the Defensive Player of the Spring was split between Cam Smith and Zacch Pickens. Mo Kaba took home the Special Teams Player of the Spring, and received the Most Improved Award on defense. (Read SDS)

 

[kingofnerf]

I was bored and saw this write-up about Clemson's spring game to use for comparison.

Takeaways from Clemson spring game: D.J. Uiagalelei same shaky starter

Defenses dominate in Clemson's Orange and White Game as fans closely watch quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei and Cade Klubnik duel.

www.yahoo.com

Offenses in the Orange and White Game were just about as frigid as the weather.

Winds swirled and temperatures dipped into the low 40s Saturday and both defenses whipped things up, too, as White beat Orange, 15-7, Saturday afternoon in Memorial Stadium to end Clemson's spring football season.

The White team rushed for minus-17 yards. Orange rushed for minus-18. Even without counting sacks, and there were 13 of them, ball-carriers couldn't manage even 2 yards per attempt. K.J. Henry had 3.5 sacks, a quarterback hurry and a pass breakup for the White team. Myles Murphy had three sacks for the Orange team.

Then there's this:

D.J. Uiagalelei still shaky, still starter
He’s about 25 pounds lighter than a few months ago, but otherwise Clemson's quarterback looked like the same D.J. Uiagalelei.

He started slowly, two bad passes on a three-and-out opening series. He wasn’t particularly elusive with the ball in his hands. Most of his throws hit the ground. He threw a fourth-quarter interception that led directly to an easy game-winning touchdown for the other team. Those things plagued him last season, although Clemson won 10 games.

Uiagalelei also showed flashes of his remarkable talent. He threw a perfect pass to a tightly covered Joseph Ngata in the end zone, although coach Dabo Swinney told referees to call a sack because the defense had crashed in but was not allowed to tackle the quarterback. Still, it was the offensive highlight of the scrimmage.

Uiagalelei is still frustrating. And it's still his job.

Rationalizing the Taters' lack of offense:

Thinned-out offense didn't have shot
It usually makes for a fun spring game when Clemson divides its team to replicate an actual game with actual scoring. But it just didn’t work this time.

Clemson’s defense, for one thing, is just so much deeper than the offense and is loaded with NFL prospects. By the time you factor in all the injuries, the offense was just way too thin to be divided in half and expected to do much. The shrinking group of offensive linemen, for example, scrimmaged without starting tackles Jordan McFadden (Dorman High School) and Walker Parks.

I am looking forward to a season of Taters having aneurisms over the lack offense with borderline baseball game final scores.