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Jadeveon Clowney Frustrated With Playing Position in Loss to Georgia: 'You Got to Put Me Somewhere Else'

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Jadeveon Clowney, a defensive end placed on the Heisman Trophy watch for this season, was frustrated after a loss to Georgia in which he was almost a non-factor.

After the game, which he did not finish due to an ankle injury, ESPN reported the South Carolina Gamecocks star told reporters he told his coaches to use him in a different way during the game.

"I told the coaches you got to put me somewhere else - in the middle if you want to - somewhere I can make some plays [to] help my team get in position to win," Clowney said. "But [Georgia] took me right out of the game."

He recorded his first sack of the season Saturday in the 41-30 loss to the University of Georgia Bulldogs. It was also the second straight underwhelming performance of the year, combining that effort with the season opener against North Carolina for six total tackles on the year.

Clowney recognized in his post-game comments what teams were doing to stifle him. They were avoiding him.

"It's hard out there trying to chase from the backside, and they just took me right out of the game," Clowney said. "They want to move me around - that's up to them."

The defensive end perhaps wanted to play in the middle to stop more running plays and divert Bulldogs running back Todd Gurley, a power back who struggles with acceleration and elusiveness, to the outside.

Gurley torched South Carolina, registering 134 yards on the ground on 30 carries, scoring one touchdown. The Bulldogs were also able to keep Clowney from disrupting Aaron Murray as well.

The Heisman hopeful quarterback threw an easy 23 attempts, completed 17 passes and tossed four touchdowns on 309 total yards through the air. Murray did not throw an interception and Gurley did not fumble as well.

"I'm going to keep playing my assignments. I set the edge most of the night, [but] the ball went away from me on the backside chasing," Clowney said. "That's just how the game went."

South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier echoed Clowney's suggestions and said the defense needs to be more "creative."

"We've got to be a little more creative," he said. "We can't just sit there and never disguise and say, 'Come on.'"

In an analytic piece done by SB Nation's Steven Godfrey, various players and coaches weighed in on how to stop one of the game's most imposing figures. Former Notre Dame head football coach and current Kansas head football coach Charlie Weis compared the South Carolina Gamecocks' pass rush to that of the Indianapolis Colts' a few years ago.

He said when the Colts had Dwight Freeney one end and Robert Mathis on the other, the offensive line had their hands full trying to stop both. This year, the Gamecocks do not have another person offenses have to worry about, allowing them to focus their whole game plan to stop Clowney.

"The critical factor isn't how good he is, it's whether or not he's the only one you have to worry about," Weis said. "The one year I saw him he was the second-best pass rusher on the field. What they did was line up 7 [Clowney] and 9 [former Gamecocks defensive end Melvin Ingram (now an NFL linebacker for the San Diego Chargers)] right next to each other, and you couldn't assign enough protection to that end. As the game would go on, they would move one to the other side to take away help on both of them."

After all, who could blame an offensive coordinator for not wanting this to happen to one of their players.

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