Preview and Prediction For USC vs Texas A&M

TX A&M -2.5 at USC ABC 7:30

Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko says "Now, we turn our attention ahead to an extremely big challenge! I think this will be the biggest challenge of the year to date. This is going to be an extremely talented team. 4-3, coming off of a bye week. Certainly, could be 6-1 easily. I just think they are a team that has grown every week. They are playing a lot of really talented young guys mixed in with a blend of talented veterans. This is going to be an enormous challenge for our program." Why does he say that? Gamecocks D. Some call them the Sandstormers, others refer to them as Cocked & Loaded. Whatever you say about them you have to include the word impressive. Playing in the best conference for football, they rank 16th in the nation against the run. They only give up an average of 18 points per game. Emmanwori leads the team in tackles with 49 and Debo isn’t far behind with 40. Gamecocks are tied for 3rd in the nation for most sacks (28) and lead the nation with most yards lost on sacks at 235. So running or passing can be a huge problem. Not only will be it be the 11 men lined up against A&M on D that present a problem but another Williams Brice capacity crowd will make it difficult to hear snap counts and create more chaos for the Aggies. A&M is rightly feeling very good about themselves running off 7 wins in a row after dropping the opener to Notre Dame. Last Saturday they manhandled LSU 38-23, and other than a 4th quarter TD by LSU completely dominated the 2nd half. They were trailing 17-7 at the break. They become the first team in the SEC to win 5 conference games. That performance got them bumped up to the #10 team in the nation! They opened at 5.5 favorites but that spread has continued to drop and as of this writing on Wednesday afternoon is down to 2.5. A big reason for the 2nd half swing was the benching of their starting QB and a move to Redshirt freshman Marcel Reed. They scored on 5 straight possessions. He only threw 2 passes in all that for a grand total of 70 yards passing on the day! One was a floater that connected for 54 yards. Pretty sure the SC DB’s would have picked that off. But it was the running that LSU couldn’t stop. They handled the traditional QB Conner Weigman and the rotation of RB’s fine. They had no answers for the running QB. Brian Kelly sounded beyond ticked after the game that his defense had spent “no time” preparing for a running QB. That’s how Reed gashed them on 9 runs for 62 yards. That’s 7 yards per carry! I’m going to say Clayton White and the Defense has been working on this all week. Coach Beamer points out that the SEC is the most competitive conference so when he looks at stats he’s most interested in how a team does against SEC competition. By that standard, A&M is #1 in offense. But against which SEC D’s?

33 against the Gators who are 11th.

41 against Mizzou who are next to worst.

34 against MS State who is 16th aka worst.

38 against LSU who is 13th.

When they played #6 overall D Arkansas they only put up 21.

This week will be the best D A&M has faced, and a team who has had time to prep for both QBs (as they haven’t named a starter as of yet). Coach Beamer said at his press conference Tuesday that the team in general is probably the healthiest they have been all year and that at practice this is the fastest the team has been all year. On the flip side our O has been mediocre. 9th in the conference only averaging 25 PPG. And we haven’t been against many good D’s either. Alabama is #9. Kentucky #10. LSU #13 and Oklahoma #14. Ole Miss is a different story. The Rebels have the #1 D currently in the conference. (no doubt assisted by the fact that they and the other 2 in the top 3 have only played 4 games thus far). So while a lot of focus is on A&M offensive domination of LSU in the 2nd half you also have to look at their D holding LSU to 1 TD in the second half! LSU is the 4th ranked offense so for them to be stifled like that means A&M made some effective half time adjustments. Coach Elko was a safety and has coached Defense his entire career up to becoming the HC at Duke in 2022. A&M D will be the best we face all year.

Seeing as the Defense is equally matched and the Offenses are much closer than the stats would indicate it’s no surprise my keys to victory are takeaways and penalties. A&M has played 8 games and we’ve played 7. We’ve had 6 fumble recoveries and 10 interceptions. In 1 more game A&M has 1 more interception but only 8 fewer fumble recoveries. If the Gamecocks can play clean, and that’s a big if as they rank 90th in penalties with 53 penalties on the year, and win the turnover battle, I believe the Gamecocks will win the game.  A&M, while winning, has been winning sloppy. Again, they have played 1 more game but have committed 9 more penalties for 62 on the year. This is a huge opportunity for South Carolina! Coach Beamer loves to preach “you’ll be remembered for November”. Knocking off the #10 team would be an amazing way to kick that off!  I feel like it's set up right for the Cocks and I'm calling for the upset. 24-21 Final.