South Carolina had their peak performance of the season offensively on Saturday. The Gamecocks caught Florida at just the right time, as it seems the wheels are coming off the proverbial bus. There's been speculation about Dan Mullen's future as the coach of Florida and the two teems met while seemingly trending opposite. The Gamecocks offense was clicking, specifically with the run game in what was their best performance yet. They would own the rushing advantage running for over 3 times as many yards as Florida.
The Gamecocks had the ball for over 9 minutes of the 1st quarter. They scored on a 39 yard Parker White FG, after a 13 play drive that took just over 7 minutes off the clock. Florida took their 1st and only lead of the game on a 12 yard TD pass from QB Emory Jones to Xzavier Henderson. South Carolina answered with a TD drive capped by a 2 yard TD run from Juju Mcdowell. That put SC up 10-7 after the 1st.
Florida scored 1st to open the 2nd quarter, they tied it at 10 with a 30 yard Chris Howard FG. The Gamecocks then scored 20 straight to close the half. They got a 35 yarder from Parker White to go up 13-10. Then they scored on a Jason Brown TD pass to Josh Vann. Parker White connected on a 40 yard FG later in the 2nd to put SC up 23-10. The backbreaker came when Gamecock D-Lineman Jabari Ellis fell on a fumble in the Florida end zone. South Carolina carried all the momentum and a 30-10 lead into the locker room.
In the 3rd, the Gamecocks picked up where they left off. SC got another Parker White FG, they then scored on Brown's 2nd TD pass of the game. That made 30 straight points for SC and gave them an insurmountable led at 40-10 heading into the 4th. Florida scored to pen the 4th, as Jones found Rick Wells on a TD pass. That made it 40-17 Gamecocks, they would go on to win it by that score.
The Gamecocks racked up 21 1st downs and over 450 yards of total offense in the game. Florida managed just 12 1st downs and 340 total yards, 258 coming through the air. South Carolina controlled the clock with a time of possession advantage of 32 minutes to just under 24 for Florida. South Carolina 5-4 on the season, they travel to Missouri this Saturday. That game is set to kickoff at 4 PM.
