Biggest takeaways from South Carolina football’s self-study

The South Carolina football staff spent much of its time each week during the season looking at the upcoming opponent on film.

In the break between the start of the recruiting dead period and bowl practice, USC’s coaches gave themselves the same treatment.

So what did they learn?

“I think probably the most glaring issues, the ability to run the ball consistently and the ability to stop the run consistently on defense,” South Carolina coach Will Muschamp said. “Those are the two things that we’ve got to continue to work on and improve on. And that’s something that’s a huge emphasis moving into practice.”

Numbers say something relatively similar to the film. Against FBS competition, the Gamecocks’ average run went 3.2 yards, coming in 115th nationally. They allowed 4.8 yards per rush, which ranked 80th nationally.

Those outcomes go against the usual profile of a Muschamp team. His defenses historically have been stout and hard hitting, which tends to mean hard to run on. His offenses had often been criticized as too heavily reliant on the run.

Things improved a little on the offensive side of the ball after the bye week, but Muschamp insisted there was a long way to go.

Making those steps comes down not so much to what the team does, but how it executes. USC this season ran a relatively diverse set of concepts on offense, but didn’t do any with a high level of consistency.

“Schematically, we run an inside zone, an outside zone, a down-around scheme,” Muschamp said. “We run a counter scheme and a power scheme. Most everybody in college football is running a lot of the same things. We need to improve in how we do it.”

The team relied heavily on inside zone and down-around (really, a sweep play) in 2015 with Steve Spurrier and Shawn Elliott, and power became more heavily used when Rico Dowdle took on a starting role.

USC is set to return three contributing tailbacks and all but one lineman next season, plus add former North Carolina and four-star Crestwood tailback Ty’Son Williams into the mix.