South Carolina's Offensive Identity Crisis
The excitement around what South Carolina's offense could look like was at an all-time high entering the season. They put together an impressive bowl performance and were adding quarterback Spencer Rattler to the mix.
Things began slow, but football takes time. They seemed to be taking steps in the right direction and building towards something. However, they have not made any real progress in the last month and may even be regressing.
This group's selling point was that they would be an efficient pro-style offense. They would huddle each play, run the football well, and incorporate complex reads that only an NFL-caliber quarterback can run.
It requires strong execution from everyone across the board, meaning only a select few offenses can do it well. Georgia is a great case study for this: it took them three seasons to develop a viable pro-style offense.
College systems are typically free-flowing and spatial. Coordinators focus on simplifying things for their quarterback by quickly getting the ball out of their hands.
You need special open-field players to make that strategy work, but the top programs typically do. Tennessee runs a quick-tempo, fast-paced offense that only took one season to install.
The point of running that style is that college defenders aren't equipped to handle seventy plays per game. Eventually, they will break down, meaning the offense can exploit mismatches.
College defenses can play forty plays per game quite well. South Carolina's opponents have had no difficulty stringing three positive plays together and getting off the field, keeping them refreshed for end-of-game situations.
The Gamecocks are too far in to switch styles this year. They have already gone through installation and midseason evaluation periods, and the question they need to ask themselves is, what do they want to do in the future?
Many assume offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield will be gone after the season. While that may be a good place to start, it doesn't magically make your problems go away.
Head coach Shane Beamer is the one who decided to implement this system. He could easily find a replacement for Satterfield that runs the same style, or he could go another route.
Rattler is easily the best quarterback talent the program has had in years. South Carolina can't afford to waste his window, and that starts with getting this group ready to play meaningful football.
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