ESPN College Football

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- To truly appreciate South Carolina’s 41-13 season-opening victory Thursday night over Southern Miss, you’ve got to first rewind to an hour and a half before the game.

Saying the Gamecocks were totally in the dark is putting it mildly.

In fact, they were staring squarely down the barrel of being without 12 players, just about all of them starters.

“Our Plan B wasn’t very much in place,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said. “I don’t know exactly what we would have done. But anyway, all the guys except a couple were able to play.”

On Wednesday, the day before the game, the NCAA had notified South Carolina that all of the players linked to the Whitney Hotel investigation were ineligible pending further review. And making matters worse, a couple others were added to that list, including prized freshman running back Marcus Lattimore and senior cornerback Chris Culliver.

A snag had cropped up with Lattimore and Culliver in separate matters and had nothing to do with the NCAA’s investigation into the South Carolina players’ living arrangements at the Whitney Hotel.

So the 12 players in limbo were completely separated from the team. They didn’t go to the hotel with the rest of the team, didn’t eat the pre-game meal, didn’t ride the team bus to the stadium.

For all intents and purposes, they weren’t members of the team.

That is, until just past 6 p.m. on Thursday when South Carolina finally got word that everybody but offensive tackle Jarriel King and Culliver had been cleared to play.

“We didn’t try to make it a distraction, but it certainly was a relief that we had basically all of our entire team here ready to play tonight,” Spurrier said. “It looked like there was a possibility that a lot of them might not be able to play. It worked out, and it was nice that we had all the guys on the field.”

But most of the day Thursday, the South Carolina coaches were scrambling.

It looked like they were going to be without all of their middle linebackers. Shaq Wilson was already injured and couldn’t play, and Rodney Paulk and Josh Dickerson were on the Whitney Hotel list.

As the clock ticked down closer to the game, the South Carolina coaches were bracing themselves to go with redshirt freshman Billy Byrne at middle linebacker. Byrne had never played in a game.

That’s how crazy it got, and it was equally tension-filled all week in practice.

Nobody knew for sure who was going to be available and who wasn’t.

One South Carolina assistant called it the “hardest week I’ve had in coaching.”

But to this staff’s credit and to the players’ credit, there were no residual effects on the field when all the smoke finally cleared.

Just one giant collective sigh of relief, although Culliver and King still have to work through some more issues before they're cleared by the NCAA to play.

“We practiced every day like the next guy wasn’t going to be there,” said South Carolina sophomore receiver Alshon Jeffery, who caught seven passes for 106 yards.

And that’s also the way the Gamecocks played -- like a seasoned team, like a focused team and like a team that expected to go out there and win going away no matter how bizarre these last couple of weeks have been around here.

“We weren’t going to let anything get to us,” said freshman receiver Ace Sanders, who parlayed his speed into a pair of big plays to set up touchdowns. “That’s the way it’s going to be all year.”

Spurrier did his best to ho-hum the performance, even though the Gamecocks rushed for 224 yards, passed for 225 yards and kept the Golden Eagles out of the end zone until a meaningless touchdown in the final minutes.

“We’ve got to get a lot better if we want to make a run and have a big year or whatever,” said Spurrier, whose Gamecocks now have a couple of extra days to get ready for Georgia’s visit on Sept. 11. “We’ve got a lot of areas we have to clean up. Hopefully, we can learn from this game and move on.”

Now that’s not to say the Head Ball Coach's swagger has completely left him.

He noted the Gamecocks had 41 points with 11 minutes left.

“They sort of milked the clock out on us,” Spurrier said. “I was thinking for a while there that we might for the first time ever score 50. I think we need to score 50. I think it’s good to score 50, if you can, but we couldn't do it tonight."

No, but the Gamecocks might have done one better. This is a program in the past that has unraveled at the first sign of adversity.

But not these guys and not this team.

Take the public battering that junior quarterback Stephen Garcia absorbed most of the offseason from Spurrier.

Garcia’s way of firing back was lowering his head and running over Southern Miss safety Justin Wilson on his way to the end zone, capping a gritty 22-yard run for South Carolina’s first touchdown.

Garcia also has a few more toys to play with on offense, in particular Lattimore and Sanders, two freshmen who only complement what was already an impressive nucleus of young talent in the program. Stephon Gilmore, DeVonte Holloman and Jeffery could play anywhere.

Are these guys for real?

We’ll know more when Georgia comes to town in a little more than a week.

But it doesn’t appear that much is going to rattle this crowd, and that’s a pretty good place to start in this league.

South Carolina freshman wide receiverAce Sanders discusses the Gamecocks' season-opening 41-13 win over Southern Miss.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina shook off suspensions to three starters and motored past Southern Miss 41-13 in the season opener Thursday night at Williams-Brice Stadium.

Here’s an instant analysis from the game:

How the game was won: The Gamecocks unleashed the kind of balanced offense on the Golden Eagles that Steve Spurrier was famous for at Florida, but hasn’t been able to produce at South Carolina on a consistent basis. After Southern Miss pulled within 7-3 late in the first quarter, South Carolina went on a 27-3 spree to put the game away. The Gamecocks had touchdown drives of 92, 85, 62 and 48 yards in the first three quarters.

Player of the game: South Carolina junior quarterback Stephen Garcia played one of the most efficient games of his career. He completed 16 of 23 passes for 193 yards and no interceptions and also had a pair of rushing touchdowns. The first of those was a 22-yard scamper where he ran over a Southern Miss safety.

Unsung hero of the game: Let’s go with the entire South Carolina first-team offensive line, a group of guys that’s been beaten on relentlessly the last couple of years. Even without starting left tackle Jarriel King, the guys up front paved the way for more than 200 rushing yards and also did a better job of protecting Garcia. First-year offensive line coach Shawn Elliott has done a nice job with this unit.

What it means: Spurrier, still fuming from that awful performance against Connecticut in the Papajohns.com Bowl to end last season, vowed that this would be a different team. Well, the Gamecocks looked like it in the kind of complete effort it’s going to take on down the road if they’re going to contend in the East. The offense was on top of its game, but so was the defense. The Golden Eagles never really threatened to score a touchdown until the closing minutes of the game, and even then, the Gamecocks held. All in all, this is exactly the way South Carolina wanted to go into Georgia this week, and the Gamecocks will have a couple of extra days to prepare, too.

What South Carolina learned: No doubt, it had been a crazy past few weeks with the Whitney Hotel investigation, all the stuff with Weslye Saunders and all the rumors floating around. But the Gamecocks refused to allow any of that to become a distraction -- a sure sign of maturity.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina already had the market cornered on bigger receivers.

Alshon Jeffery, Tori Gurley and D.L. Moore are all at least 6-4.

Ace Sanders, a 5-7, 166-pound freshman, may have to look up to them all. But that's OK.

He adds a dimension of speed to this offense that the Gamecocks were severely lacking a year ago. He had a 53-yard run on a reverse to set up a touchdown in the first half.

He showed off his speed again when he simply ran away from the guy covering him to gather in a beautifully thrown 31-yard pass from Stephen Garcia, setting up a Garcia touchdown run.

The Gamecocks are rolling, 34-6 in the third quarter, and it's safe to say they've found their speed guy in the receiver rotation.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina sophomore safety D.J. Swearinger suffered a concussion and won't return for Thursday night's game.

Swearinger had been one of the Gamecocks' most promising young defensive players in the preseason. Depending on the seriousness of the concussion, he could be iffy for the Georgia game next week.

The Gamecocks were already playing without starting cornerback Chris Culliver, who was held out because of an NCAA matter.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Playing without starting offensive tackle Jarriel King and starting cornerback Chris Culliver, South Carolina broke open a close game in the second quarter to go into halftime with a 24-6 lead Thursday night over Southern Miss at Williams-Brice Stadium.

Here's a quick halftime analysis:

Turning point: Freshman receiver Ace Sanders took a pitch on a reverse and turned on the jets for a 53-yard run to set up fellow freshman Marcus Lattimore's first touchdown run of the half, turning a 10-3 lead into a 17-3 lead. It was the longest run for South Carolina since the 2006 season.

Best call: South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier stuck with junior quarterback Stephen Garcia for most of the first half. Garcia got into a rhythm after the initial possession and played well. Spurrier didn't want to break Garcia's rhythm and held off on going with true freshman Connor Shaw until the final possession of the half.

Best player: Garcia, Sanders and Lattimore all had their moments, but South Carolina sophomore cornerback Stephon Gilmore is a force. He's shut down everything that has come his way.

COLUMBIA, S.C. –- I don’t see a lot of hype with South Carolina freshman running back Marcus Lattimore.

Rather, I see a lot of substance.

He just scored his second touchdown, and the Gamecocks are pulling away from Southern Miss in the second quarter.

Lattimore’s 7-yard touchdown run put South Carolina ahead 24-3, and what was so impressive about his run was the cut he made to get into the end zone. He has great vision and anticipates extremely well.

You knew he had great acceleration, but it looks like to me that he’s also going to be terrific down around the goal line.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Southern Miss has really struggled Thursday night to match up with South Carolina sophomore receiver Alshon Jeffery.

The 6-4, 233-pound Jeffery is a tough matchup for anybody, and his route running looks even crisper in this first game than it did a year ago as a freshman.

He already has great leaping ability and is getting better at positioning his body.

Smaller cornerbacks in the SEC are going to hate seeing Jeffery coming this season.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Stephen Garcia has had his ups and downs as South Carolina’s quarterback.

He’s been in Steve Spurrier’s doghouse, and he’s drawn the Head Ball Coach’s ire.

But the one thing you’ve never heard Spurrier (or anybody, for that matter) question about Garcia is his toughness. He played through a painful rib injury last season against Ole Miss and never quits competing no matter how hard or how many times he gets planted.

His 22-yard touchdown run Thursday was vintage Garcia. He took off when nothing was there and wasn’t about to go out of bounds. Instead, he put his head down and trucked Southern Miss safety Justin Wilson inside the 5 before diving into the end zone.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Having seen this stadium packed to the gills back in the day, it's odd to see so many empty seats tonight at Williams-Brice Stadium.

There are gaping holes of empty bleachers in the West upper deck as well as the South upper deck. The seating capacity here is a little more than 80,000, but I seriously doubt there are 70,000 people actually in the stands.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- It could have been worse for South Carolina, and at one point Thursday, it looked like the Gamecocks might have to sit several players for their opener against Southern Miss.

But when all the smoke cleared after a frenetic 24 hours, starting cornerback Chris Culliver and starting offensive tackle Jarriel King were the two players kept out of the game.

Culliver was a surprise, because he wasn’t one of the players linked to the Whitney Hotel investigation. King, however, was one of the players living at the hotel before South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier told everybody to move out.

As many as 10 players were staying at the Whitney Hotel, and there was real concern that a large chunk of those players might be required by the NCAA to miss this game.

With King out, the Gamecocks are expected to start junior Kyle Nunn at left tackle. Junior C.C. Whitlock is expected to step in for Culliver at cornerback.

Ironically, Whitlock was one of the players tied to the Whitney Hotel probe that was thought to be most at risk as far as missing the game.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – There’s still no official word on any South Carolina suspensions for Thursday night’s game against Southern Mississippi in connection to the Whitney Hotel investigation.

Steve Fink, South Carolina’s media relations director, said he had nothing to release at this point.

However, the five players believed to be most at risk as far as missing the game were safety Akeem Auguste, cornerback C.C. Whitlock, offensive tackle Jarriel King, offensive guard Terrence Campbell and defensive tackle Ladi Ajiboye.

Tight end Weslye Saunders has already been suspended for the game by South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier for violating team rules.

South Carolina officials are still planning on knowing something definitive on all the players prior to kickoff.

One other player who wasn't dressed out with the rest of his teammates was starting cornerback Chris Culliver, although he wasn't linked to the Whitney Hotel investigation.