With one week left, Will Muschamp still thinks his offense has the ability to improve
The South Carolina football team will finish the season with a poor statistical offensive showing.
The team has one game left and currently ranks 99th in offensive yards per play and points per game. That’s before facing a Clemson team with arguably the best defense in the country.
The Gamecocks go into that game likely without their top offensive playmaker, Bryan Edwards, a week and a half after a minor knee procedure. They’re hoping to get top rusher Tavien Feaster back after he’s missed the past two games.
But USC coach Will Muschamp thinks there’s some ability still there to improve, and he lays some of the blame with the coaches.
“I certainly think we can play better,” Muschamp said during USC’s open week. “I think we can. I think as coaches, when things aren’t going well, the first thing you have to do is look in the mirror. What can we do to have better production, have better results? That’s the first thing. Then, the execution: Are we asking the players to do too much? Because obviously we didn’t do a good enough job.”
The team was idle this weekend, but had three practices before a short break. The coach spoke after the first two and said he liked what he saw.
Muschamp spent most of the season talking about how his staff has tried to do less schematically but do it better. The running game had been reduced to heavily relying on one concept (a pin-and-pull sweep they’d executed well), but loaded boxes and the inability to throw and catch consistently have limited things.
The offense has been shaken up a time or two, with an offensive line that had to be shuffled after the opener and QB Jake Bentley going out after the first game with a foot injury. Ryan Hilinski has been up and down while being thrown into the fire (and after a knee injury), while the running game has blended good moments with getting fewer than 2.7 yards per carry in three of the past four weeks.
USC has not had both its top backs for a full game since Oct. 12.
It was a major drop-off from an offense that looked like it had found some things last season.
“It’s frustrating because last year we averaged over 30 points a game, for only I think the sixth time,” Muschamp said. “At the University of South Carolina, five or six times we’ve averaged 30 points per game. Only three times in the last 13 years we’ve averaged over 400 yards a game. Bryan McClendon and his offensive staff did that a year ago, OK? They’ve done some good things offensively.”
Based on an examination of 40 or so of the most successful teams in program history, USC had averaged 30 points per game seven times before last season and 400 yards a game at least eight times.
That 2018 offense had Bentley throwing to Deebo Samuel, a healthy Edwards and Shi Smith, plus K.C. Crosby and Kiel Pollard at tight end.
It’s the seventh time in eight seasons a Muschamp team has had an underwhelming offense, and he’s gone through four offensive coordinators in that stretch across his time at Florida and USC.
The next challenge, and the impediment to that improvement, will be a big one. Clemson ranks third in the country in points allowed per game and second in yards per play allowed (3.9). USC will likely be undermanned again, and Muschamp still hopes his staff can cook something up.
“We’ve got to find some ways to move the ball against a very good Clemson defense,” Muschamp said. “Not a whole lot of people have moved them. We have to find some ways to run the ball. Those are things we continue to go back and look at. We’ve got to have the right answers, and we certainly didn’t in College Station. I can assure you of that.”
NEXT
Who: South Carolina vs. Clemson
When: Noon, Saturday, Nov. 30
Where: Williams-Brice Stadium
TV: ESPN
Line: Clemson by 24.5
This story was originally published November 23, 2019 at 9:25 AM.
