The formula South Carolina needs on offense, for better or worse
Through an offseason, a college football team often envisions the identity it needs on offense. Coaches look at players, make plans and lay out playbooks in depth likely more involved than will be needed.
And then seasons such as the one South Carolina football has gone through happen, and identity or offensive formula change rapidly.
The Gamecocks projected to be an up-tempo, run-pass option offense with quarterback Jake Bentley at the helm. That was the goal after the offense took a large jump last season.
Then top receiving tight end Kiel Pollard got hurt. Then Bentley got hurt. Then the offensive line got shaken up. And things had to change in their coach’s mind.
“Our formula has pretty much been a 40, 35-40 run game-type deal,” Muschamp said. “About 20-25 passes. For us to be successful, that’s where we kind of are sitting right now. We come out of the gate throwing the ball 50 times, it hasn’t been good for us.”
The Gamecocks have thrown 50 or more passes three times this season, all by freshman Ryan Hilinski. South Carolina QBs have only hit that mark 12 times before in history, and USC is 1-11 in those games (0-3 this season).
The change to a slower-paced, run-dominant scheme is a notable one. When Muschamp’s tenure went off the rails at Florida, an offense built around power football was given some of the blame. When he arrived at South Carolina, he talked about going faster and scoring points, but getting those results has been inconsistent at best.
In USC’s four wins, they’ve averaged 30.3 passes and 42.3 runs (30 passes to 43.6 runs in FBS wins). In losses, the average is 45.3 passes and 30.6 runs.
It’s a bit of a flip from last season, when Bentley, Bryan Edwards and Deebo Samuel led a strong passing attack that had to make up for a so-so ground game.
At points this year, the Gamecocks rode their pin-and-pull sweep scheme to a good deal of success, working both RPOs and some other running concepts off that. It was a departure from other years when zone runs and some power or counter took precedence at various points.
Against Appalachian State, the pin-and-pull scheme ran into trouble with loaded boxes and consistent run blitzes.
If South Carolina is to get back to that 40-25 run-pass formula, it will need to get that part of the offense firing again. The Mountaineers didn’t exactly surprise USC, but they did force some changes that never came.
“We worked on a lot of the movement,” Muschamp said about the team’s schemes. “I felt good about it going into the game. And then you’ve got to make some adjustments based on what they’re doing and we didn’t make the right adjustments.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2019 at 10:15 AM with the headline "The formula South Carolina needs on offense, for better or worse."
