Dowell Loggains Discusses Importance Of Offense Helping Spencer Rattler
While the list of positives was short in South Carolina's season-opening loss suffered at the hands of the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Gamecocks most recognizable name on the offensive side of the ball, Spencer Rattler, more than lived up to the hype surrounding him coming into the 2023 season. The fifth-year senior completed 77 percent of his passes for 353 yards and didn't turn over the ball once all night despite being harassed by the Tar Heels pass rush on seemingly every other passing play.
His coach and play-caller, Dowell Loggains, spoke to the media on Wednesday afternoon and was asked about the degree to which North Carolina limited him from using the entirety of his playbook. Loggains made it a point to both give credit to his quarterback and challenge the rest of the unit.
"We very fortunate cause we have [Spencer Rattler]. He's spaghetti sauce, [and] he covered up a lot of issues in that [North Carolina] game - but you can't ask someone to play that way every week without help," Loggains implored. "The way you get great quarterback play is to get the other ten guys to do their job. So, we have an eraser at quarterback that played really really well, as well and as gutsy as any performance I've been a part of, but we gotta help him," Loggains lamented.
The stats from the game back up what Loggains said on Wednesday, as the Gamecocks rushed for negative two net yards thanks to the sixteen tackles for loss and nine sacks given up to the Tar Heels. Offensive coordinators are always looking to stay ahead of the sticks as much as possible when it comes to putting drives together, but when you're always taking two steps backward for every one step forward, your unit quickly becomes bogged down, something Loggains alluded to in his answer.
"The negative plays hurt us, and that happens when you don't control the line of scrimmage up front," Dowell explained. "It's those little things [where] the pressure starts to mount, and it falls back onto the quarterback, and the way [Rattler] played and the way he handled it was unbelievable."
It sounds overly simplistic, but if the Gamecocks can find a way to give Spencer more time, they can be in every single game they play this season. If No. 7, however, has to continue to carry the entire load, things could go off the rails very quickly for the Gamecocks.
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