How South Carolina's QBs Will Fit In Mike Bobo's Offense
The South Carolina Gamecocks enter spring practice with depth at the quarterback position, but not a lot of experience.
Four of the six listed quarterbacks are underclassmen with Ryan Hilinski the favorite so far to take the starting spot after being tried by fire last year in replacing Jake Bentley.
Still, head coach Will Muschamp said that all starting positions are up for grabs, so the job won’t come easy should Hilinski win it.
They will adjust to style of new offensive coordinator Mike Bobo and Muschamp said this spring they are experimenting with a few things on that side of the ball.
“You know, Mike's been great. He's come in, we'll be more under center. They'll be some, obviously, pass and run concepts that we feel very comfortable with that'll remain the same,” Muschamp said. “We're still trying to play with some different tempos at the line of scrimmage. We'll continue to do those things.”
Bobo offenses have traditionally been tailored to suit the NFL bound running backs on the roster, but he said during his introductory press conference that his time at Colorado State forced him to become more creative with how he uses his personnel and he’ll bring that same mindset to South Carolina.
He noted that his primary focus with Hilinski is to help him become more fundamentally sound and he feels the Gamecocks’ run game could help him with that.
“I'm excited about [Hilinksi]. I see a guy that's got some talent. I see a guy that went through some growing pains, being a freshman,” Bobo said. “And we got to do things to help him and some of that is the run game and some of that is protection but had a chance to sit down with him on three occasions already and he's going to be here.”
While Bobo doesn’t have a definite plan for his current roster, particularly his quarterbacks, yet, he mapped out a general framework.
“You know, the base philosophy is we want to be balanced, we want to run the ball, we want to play with a tight end and have a tight end side running game and a play action game,” he said. “But at the same time we got to get the guys that we identify as play makers. We got to get them the ball in their hands and that's one possession, quite frankly, you lose two running backs, you lose two receivers, number 89, Edwards right?”
“[Brian] Edwards was a heck of a player. So, we're going to have some young guys playing at those positions but I do believe you can have young guys come in and play at the running back position and the receiver position and be successful early on.”
He added that he will adapt to whatever style of play works best.
“Whatever it takes for us to move the ball and not turn it over and put points on the board, that's going to be our style,” he said.