What South Carolina aims to fix in bye week, plus the recruiting plan

South Carolina football coach Will Muschamp was so excited about recruiting, he planned to leave a day early to “get in position.”

His Gamecocks have an open week, but that doesn’t mean much time off.

The USC staff hit the road Sunday night for a full day of Monday recruiting. The coaches will do the same thing Thursday night for Friday. That’s every staffer that can be out on the road, plus Muschamp.

“Watch high school prospects, go by the high schools, see the transcripts, all the different stuff,” Muschamp said of the plan on his weekly TV show. “A lot of them are practicing.”

That first recruiting day yielded at least one offer in 2022 Jefferson, Georgia athlete Malaki Starks. The running back/receiver/quarterback/defensive back is averaging 21 yards per offensive touch, and has six offensive touchdowns, plus one on defense. Coleman Hutzler made the offer.

South Carolina is looking to fill four remaining spots in the 2020 class, plus set the groundwork for the next few cycles.

On the home front, the team practices three times, and started Tuesday morning. Beyond going Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the Gamecocks will have a lift and run Friday before the team is being given that afternoon and all of Saturday off. The team will reconvene Sunday for the first Georgia walk-through.

“Off weeks are managed by teams with good leadership,” Muschamp said after the Kentucky game. “We’ve got good leadership.”

He said there were a few topics his staff aims to clean up. There were some small special teams things, but nothing major.

Offense:

“Obviously on offense in the red zone, we’ve got to score more touchdowns,” Muschamp said. “Some things that are probably on me as much as anything else. We’ve got to to a better job there as anything else.”

South Carolina is currently tied for 83rd in scoring 10 touchdowns in 17 red zone trips. That number has been boosted by a late score or two and some fourth-down situations where the team eschewed a field goal.

Muschamp also mentioned third downs as an issue, and the Gamecocks are currently 110th in the country, converting 33.8 percent of those third downs.

Defense:

“Defensively, the explosive plays,” Muschamp said. “We really want to go back and look at where we’re giving up some explosive plays that have really flipped the field on us in several games.”

Preventing long plays has long been a staple of Muschamp’s Gamecocks defense. Even last year, when USC had a slew of defensive issues, the Gamecocks were ninth in the country in fewest plays of 30 or more yards allowed, fewest played of 50 or more yards allowed and gave up no plays longer than 60 yards. (That’s despite having the 15th-most plays run against them).

This year, South Carolina has already given up nine plays of 30 yards or more, five of 40 yards or more and one of 80 or more yards.

This story was originally published October 1, 2019 at 12:02 PM.