South Carolina dominated 1st down (26 to 16), top (34:21 to 25:39), to's (3-1) and total yds (427 to 308) but they ended up 4 short in the stat that matters most. While there is blame to be passed around (the “d”, an int, stupid penalties) a lot of the blame must fall on the special teams. A blocked extra point that would have allowed USC to kick a field goal instead of forcing the 4th down conversion and 252 yds of kickoff returns with the corner stone being a Boykin 100 yd TD return coupled with to 48 yd returns. Then there is the defense who looked more interested in making the big hits than in wrapping up and sound form tackling and constantly seemed out of place on the field. Then it's hard to pin much blame an offense that scored 37 points or a quarterback with a 58% completion ratio with 313 yds but still they had trouble in the red-zone. They were forced to settle for field goals 5 times and a turnover on downs and if they had have been able to capitalize on any one of these it could have changed the outcome.
While it doesn't help now the first step in the healing process might be recognizing that dispite these mistakes we were a tipped pass away from coming back from 15 points (after blowing a 10 point lead) on the road against a ranked SEC foe.
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