PirateIllustrated.com

September 8, 2012

Mark Lindsay
PirateIllustrated.com Publisher

COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina(2-0) gave East Carolina a major league football headache in a 48-10 pounding on Saturday in a game that was never close from the outset.

Backup Gamecock quarterback Dylan Thompson connected on 21 of his 37 passes for 330 yards and three touchdowns while ECU's Rio Johnson threw three interceptions for the Pirates and yielded to Shane Carden in the third quarter.

"On offense we turned the ball over, on defense we turned the ball over. We faced a top ten team today and deservedly so. We talked about playing eleven man football and we didn't do that today. The better team won the football game today handily," said Ruffin McNeill.

ECU(1-1) only ran the football 22 times during the game, most of which coming during garbage time late in the second half. The Pirates only ran the football three times in the first half. Johnson was hung out to dry by the Gamecock defense who were fast to figure out what ECU was going to do offensely on this particular Saturday.

Johnson completed 18 of 29 for 193 yards in a losing cause while Carden hit on 12 of 18 for 140 yards, a touchdown and one interception that was returned for a touchdown. The Pirates had five turnovers in the contest.

The Gamecock defense was stellar as the 9th ranked team in the nation rolled to their second win of the season. Even though the Pirates held USC's Marcus Lattimore to just 40 yards on the ground, Kenny Miles ran for another 30 yards. The Gamecocks ran for a net 130 yards for the game while holding ECU to just 70 yards on just 22 total carries.

"We gave away too many long plays on defense and we're a better defense than that and offensively we gave the ball away too many times."

South Carolina got the football first and drove the football right down the field on a five play 80-yard drive to open the game. Damiere Byrd caught a 53-yard bomb from backup quarterback Dylan Thompson to set up the first score. The Gamecocks' Marcus Lattimore then ran it right up the middle for a 7-0 lead with little resistence from the ECU defense.

After ECU was unable to sustain a drive after stopping the Gamecock's second drive. South Carolina took over after an ECU punt. South Carolina then found multiple holes in the middle of the Pirate secondary in a five play 72-yard drive capped off by a Thompson to Rory Anderson 7-yard touchdown. The Gamecocks went up 14-0 with six minutes to go in the first stanza.

East Carolina was limited to one yard of rushing on the ground in the first quarter while the South Carolina ran for 60 yards.

DeAngelo Smith caught a 30-yard pass from Dylan Thompson over top of Jacobi Jenkins in a ten play 70-yard drive. Adam Yates PAT made it South Carolina 21 - ECU 0.

The Pirates moved the ball on the next drive to the Gamecock 35 yard line, but on third and one, ECU stayed with the air game, opting to throw the long ball. It was intercepted by Bryce Williams at the 7 yard line to end the drive.

Another ECU fumble led to a 21-0 South Carolina lead at halftime. The Gamecocks passed for 216 yards and rushed for 87 yards to just 6 for ECU on only three attempts at intermission. The Pirates had 185 passing yards but came up empty on the scoreboard.

Chad Wilson's second interception of the season off of backup ECU quarterback Shane Carden in his first pass attempt gave the Gamecocks the football inside the 30 yard line. Thompson made it 28-0 when he avoided a sure ECU sack and the Pirates failed to wrap up on the tackle. Thompson scampered away from the tackle to the right and his throw over the middle to D.L. Moore resulted in a 29-yard touchdown as Moore ran down the left sideline for the score.

Rio Johnson returned on the next drive for the Pirates after the Carden Interception and threw a 33-yard pick-six to Jimmy Legree for a 35-0 South Carolina lead 2:45 seconds into the second half.

ECU reinserted Carden on the next ECU drive at quarterback. Jadavion Clowney's only notable tackle of the game to that point resulted in a face mask penalty (on the quarterback Carden) that gave the Pirates a first down. That was about the only bright spot offensively for ECU in the first ten minutes of the third quarter.

Carden did connect with Jabril Soloman and Danny Webster. That helped move ECU to the eight yard line with 2:25 in the third quarter. But the Pirate drive once again stalled and ECU opted for a meaningless 23-yard Warren Harvey field goal rather than taking a chance of coming up empty.

The Gamecocks scored again when Ace Sanders took a pitch and passed the football to D.L. Moore to the left for 16-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 41-3. South Carolina threw the football into the cheap seats on the PAT with 14:50 to play.

Justin Hardy hauled in a 34-yard Shane Carden touchdown pass in the middle of the endzone at the 9:55 mark of the fourth to cut the lead to 31.

Seth Strickland found Rory Anderson for a 41-yard touchdown pass in the last minute of the game as Steve Spurrier opted to run up the score to 48-10.

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