Gamecocks ‘evaluating everybody’ after loss to Kentucky

South Carolina’s path back to football relevance is going to be an up-and-down affair it seems. The Gamecocks hit another valley Saturday night, falling to Kentucky 17-10 in Commonwealth Stadium.

“Obviously, we are frustrated,” junior safety D.J. Smith said. “We lost to Kentucky three years in a row. That’s no fun.”

The Wildcats’ victory gave them their first three-game winning streak against South Carolina. It gave the Gamecocks a bad taste in their mouths.

After opening the season with a road win over Vanderbilt, South Carolina took a step back in a loss to Mississippi State. Then came a win against East Carolina and another week to feel good before Saturday’s loss, in which South Carolina gained just 268 yards against the SEC’s worst defense.

“Obviously, people are down because we know we could have played better and we know we could have beat them,” Smith said. “We just have to regroup and come back tomorrow, look at the tape and come back from there.”

Next up for the Gamecocks is a Texas A&M team that is 4-0 and ranked No. 9 in the country. There could be changes for South Carolina before then in personnel or game plan, coach Will Muschamp said Sunday night.

“Right now we’re in the process of, ‘What can we do and what can we improve on?’ We are in the process of working through those things right now,” Muschamp said. “We obviously have some limitations because of injuries and youth. If we need to make some changes, we will make some changes.”

It’s unlikely one of those changes will be at quarterback despite freshman Brandon McIlwain’s struggles in his first SEC start. The Gamecocks plan to start McIlwain against the Aggies, Muschamp said.

“Brandon is the starter,” he said. “I’m not just talking about evaluating one position. I am talking about evaluating everybody. Brandon played well against East Carolina (two weeks ago). We need to play better around him. That’s it as much as anything.”

Muschamp’s biggest frustrations stemmed from mistakes on what he and his staff consider the basics of their systems.

“Things we have repped multiple, multiple, multiple times on offense and defense and special team and we make mistakes in the game against looks we have practiced against,” he said. “Part of that is youth, but at the end the day, that’s not an excuse and we are not going to allow that to be an excuse. We have to have better execution in all three phases.”

There were “some frustrated guys” in the locker room Saturday night, Muschamp said.

“That’s a good thing. They care. They’ve invested a lot,” he said. “It’s a frustrating defeat and my biggest message in the locker room was we win together and we lose together. We are not going to get into the finger-pointing business. We are going to rally our troops. We are going to work harder.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2016 at 8:44 AM with the headline "Gamecocks ‘evaluating everybody’ after loss to Kentucky."