POST GAME THOUGHTS-SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS

Last summer Steve Spurrier called Kevin Sumlin a great negotiator. Behind the scenes, Spurrier had expressed doubts about whether Sumlin was worth the 5 million he was getting paid.

I wonder what he thinks now.

I don't mean to sound...well not sure how it sounds, but before this game I thought back to the Mississippi State game in 2012. They were supposed to beat us, and we just came out and whipped their ass. For some strange nagging reason I couldn't see us losing to South Carolina.

And we didn't.

How about them Aggies man. How about Kevin Damn Sumlin? How about that game? I mean man. Man man man. What a fun 3.5 hours.

Let's do a quick breakdown

Offense

We were perfect in every single way. Damn near perfect in every single facet of the game. I mean what can you say about that performance?

Kenny Hill is fantastic. Or perhaps he's just another Kevin Sumlin protege. Sam Bradford, Case Keenum, Johnny Manziel, and now Kenny Hill. All products of the Sumlin "process". But man, what poise. A true sophomore making his first start in a hostile environment, and just nailing it.

Cant move on without talking about Jake Spavital. Bold prediction: he will prove to be better than Kliff Kingsbury. Enjoy him now because someone is going to hire him as a head coach after the season is over. Doesnt matter because Kevin Sumlin will find the next young offensive genius out there. How about that draw play on third and long? How about all of those slants?

I owe Malcome Kennedy an apology. I was down on him much of last season. The guy is a monster and a legitimate Biletnikoff candidate...but at this point so is RSJ. This offense just has so many weapons. We are seeing the one back spread being run with elite elite ELITE athletes. And its a sight to behold.

RBs (gonna talk about them collectively) looked fantastic. What I love is that all of them ran hard. Brandon and Trey were guilty of dancing too much last year. Not this year. They ran with their head down and killed it. Speaking of which, we're finally seeing Brandon be that 5 star that we knew he could be.

And finally the OL. Masterful performance. Germaine Ifedi is no drop off at all from Ogbuehi and Ogbuehi is no drop off from Jake Matthews. Just a fantastic performance.

Defense

The front four performed very very very well. We were getting pressure using freshmen and sophomores. Think about that. Soon enough guys like Jay Arnold and Myles Garrett are going to be upperclassmen. How good is our DL going to be at that point?

Speaking of which, Myles Garrett was beating his OL counterpart (who will probably be in the NFL next year) with a straight bullrush. Imagine what happens when he gets his technique down. He's going to be a monster

LBs played very well. My heart breaks, and prayers go out to AJ Hilliard because before going down he was having a solid solid game. Mastrogiovanni was vocal and telling folks where to go. Solid performance.

DBs. Sigh. Flags aside (and the refs were incredibly overzealous), you take away two of those blown coverages and the game is over at the half. Everett wasn't his normal solid self at all. Howard Matthews was hot and cold and further reinforced the notion that he's an in-the-box safety.

But there's good news. We get Devante Harris back soon enough (Victor Davis played admirably with a few mess-ups, but Devante is just plain better), and Armani Watts is one solution at safety. One surefire solution at safety. To the point where he's already one of the best players in that secondary.

Bottom Line

Don't let anyone tell you that SC sucks. Because they will go on to win more than a few games. Perhaps they were slightly overrated but not to the point of losing by double digits. This was all about how dominant A&M was/is. We were just that good tonight. Don't get it twisted. We lost three first rounders and we are still dominant.

This team is for real. I mean for real for real. Buckle up because it's going to be a fun damn season.