Iron Bowl: Does South Carolina Give Us Insight As To Who Will Win?

Living in Alabama you have to choose between two division one schools, The Alabama Crimson Tide or their little brother, the Auburn Tigers. With this loss against South Carolina, we now have played a common team so it might give us an idea on how the Iron Bowl will play out.

First we have to compare the play of the Gamecocks vs the two teams. The game against Alabama Stephen Garcia was 17/20 for 201 yards with 3 touchdowns and one interception. McElroy was 27/34 for 315 yards with 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. The best running back duo in the nation was held to 64 yards on 17 carries. The South Carolina defense was stacking the box limiting the effectiveness of Ingram and Richardson. As time was running out, Nick Saban abandoned the running game and put it on McElroy’s shoulders to win the game. Also, with no deep balls coming out of the back field the Gamecocks blitz packages yielded 6 sacks. According to the Alabama players and coaches after the game, Alabama did not show up to play. Ingram said " I don't think the guys were ready to come out here" he goes on to say that some of the players thought they could just show up and win. Nick Saban also took blame for the loss, saying it was his fault and the players were out coached. I'm not sure if I believe him, I think he is just taking responsibility for his players. Steve Spurrier in his post game interview said that Garcia had the game of his life.

Against Auburn was a completely different South Carolina team. Stephen Garcia was 15/21 for 235 yards for 3 touchdowns, no interceptions but had 2 fumbles. However, in this game Steve Spurrier put in his backup QB that went 4/8 for 70 yards, zero touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Can you attribute his poor performance to the Auburn defense, or as anyone who watched the game can tell you it was just a bad performance from an inexperienced QB.  Auburn did hold Lattimore to 33 yards on 14 carries, however they gave up more passing yards than Alabama did. Cameron Newton is a one man show rushing for 176 yards on 25 carries and went 16/21 for 158 more yards. Michael Dyer rushed for 100 yards as well.

I don’t usually play a game of if’s , but the difference in these two games is Stephen Garcia’s play and the pride of Steve Spurrier. Garcia stepped up against Alabama’s young secondary, while he crumbled under the pressure against Auburn. Steve Spurrier’s pride is why he didn’t put Garcia back in the game against Auburn, while he let his back up QB lose the game for them. If Spurrier had left Garcia in , I’m certain that we would be looking at an undefeated South Carolina team. I know Garcia was taken out because he was hurt, but Garcia was ready to go back in and finish the game but Steve Spurrier would not let him. Shaw threw two interceptions in the fourth quarter which allowed Cameron Newton to come from behind just in time. Auburn didn’t win because of their ball hawking defense, it was more about Steve Spurrier’s bad decision making and he got the same from his young QB.

However, the fact is that he did put in his backup and the Gamecocks did lose.

So what does this tell us about the outcome of the Iron Bowl? Absolutely nothing! The whole reason I wanted to write this article is because the average Auburn fan in my area has been telling me that since Auburn beat South Carolina then they will beat Alabama. It wasn't 30 minutes after the game that I started getting text messages about it. The Gamecocks performance against Alabama was much better than their play against Auburn. (I don’t know what was up with Alabama… maybe the stars were not aligned properly) You can’t compare these games because of the completely different play from Garcia and Steve Spurrier almost looked sane against Alabama. Unfortunately Alabama has lost one, and by the time the Iron Bowl comes around Auburn will have one… maybe two losses. Their first loss will come by the hands of Ryan Mallet and the Razorbacks, and the second possible loss coming from LSU or a possible upset from Georgia. The Bulldogs are a long shot, however with their performance against Tennessee it looks like the Bulldogs are waking up and are looking hungry.

What do I want you to come away from the article with? Nothing... that is what you can tell from these three teams playing each other. You have to wait until the Iron Bowl for that.

My prediction for the rest of the season: Look for Alabama to win out the rest of the season (including Auburn).  I am not saying the Iron Bowl won't be close, with Cameron Newton on the lose it will be, but Alabama will close it out with a win. Do you think that Nick Saban will actually let the Crimson Tide rest for one second with a loss like this?  When Alabama does win the rest of their games, including against South Carolina in Atlanta, look for them to make it up to at least number 3 and possibly still the National Championship depending on who the #1 and #2 teams are. Sorry LSU, Auburn, South Carolina, and Arkansas… it was a good run, but it won’t be good enough. There is always next year…