The ‘alarming’ trend Will Muschamp’s noticed in South Carolina’s early practices
After they haunted South Carolina football all last season, coach Will Muschamp reiterated the same message time and time again this offseason: The Gamecock offense needs to do a better job of limiting turnovers in 2019.
Five practices into training camp, he’s not pleased on that front.
“Well, we haven’t taken care of the ball offensively for five days. And that’s been alarming,” Muschamp said Tuesday when asked about his early impressions of camp. “But that’s something certainly that can be corrected.”
Senior quarterback Jake Bentley threw 14 interceptions last year, the most of any SEC signal caller. Carolina’s running backs also fumbled seven times. All told, the Gamecocks finished 87th nationally in turnovers lost and 101st in percentage of drives that ended with a turnover.
Bentley in particular has taken flak from fans for his turnover woes, though Muschamp and others have defended him by noting that South Carolina’s receivers dropped many passes and tipped several into the arms of defenders.
Regardless of whose fault it was, there was no denying it cost the Gamecocks dearly. As Muschamp and his players repeated at SEC Media Days last month, USC was 6-0 when it won the turnover battle last season, 1-6 when it didn’t.
Moving forward, Muschamp will get his first look at how the offense operates in an area it struggled in last season: the red zone. Carolina finished 2018 ranked 117th in the nation in red zone offense.
“We’ve got guys competing, got guys competing hard. We’ve had two good third-down days back to back, been pleased with that, and that competition will go in the red zone in practice six, which will be Thursday. We have an NCAA-mandated day off (Wednesday), which we’ll just have meetings and walk-throughs. But we’ll go in the red zone for the first time in practice six. We’re looking forward to that,” Muschamp said.
In addition to the entire offense not taking care of the ball to his satisfaction, Muschamp said in the battle for the backup quarterback position between redshirt freshman Dakereon Joyner and freshman Ryan Hilinski, both players were guilty of not unloading the ball quick enough Tuesday — also noting that neither player has an edge at the moment.
“Both guys have shown some flashes, done some really good things,” Muschamp said. “(But) we’ve got to get rid of the football. Couple move-the-ball situations today, we were holding onto the ball too much at that position. We gotta get rid of the ball.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2019 at 7:30 PM.
