South Carolina offense anything but vanilla with big SEC matchup looming

There’s a pattern that sometimes emerges early in college football seasons.

A team will face lesser competition and won’t look quite as good at is hopes. And the explanation will be “Aha, they’re just going vanilla, holding back the good stuff for a real opponent.”

More often than not, it’s either a sign of things to come or the kind of blip that happens in the uneven landscape of college football. Sometimes a team runs out some new fancy stuff for the first big game, but only sometimes.

South Carolina’s football team had the perfect opportunity to fit that mold.

It faced Coastal Carolina on Saturday. It gets No. 3 Georgia next week. If there’s ever a perfect moment to hold back, this was it.

Instead, Deebo Samuel lined up at running back once. Rico Dowdle lined up at fullback. USC played a fullback in an honest-to-goodness I-formation, the sort that would’ve made new offensive coordinator Bryan McClendon’s mentor Mark Richt proud.

Before a closer look at the film, USC’s offense seemed to look different. It had a new base running play, and a wide batch of tricks.

And that leaves two questions: What does that mean for Georgia and for the rest of the season?

For the Georgia game, it could well be a case of putting a lot on film and making the Bulldogs staff have to prep for a lot. At heart, most college offenses rely on the same things most of the time (with execution and talent). USC might know what its base will be, but not want Georgia to have quite as clear a picture.

The rest of the season? Well, that’s harder to read.

The only thing a team can do against an overmatched opponent is take care of business decisively. USC did that about as well as it has in any game in the past three seasons. (Last year’s Arkansas win is the only one that’s close.)

The offense was productive, and that was without big plays. But there also was, for lack of a better word, a seeming level of joy and perhaps fun.

Samuel explained the players don’t feel that; it’s just plays. But we’ve seen a different offensive spirit provide a lot of uplift for programs, providing they’re successful.

Through next week and beyond, we’ll have to see if the Gamecocks can keep that going.

This story was originally published September 1, 2018 at 6:13 PM.