South Carolina’s offense under Muschamp has gone pass heavy. Will Bobo change that?
When word came out in December that the South Carolina football program was on the path to selecting Mike Bobo as its new offensive coordinator, a particular tone of lament began to run through the discourse.
Gamecocks fans knew Bobo as the man who ran Georgia’s I-formation-centric attack, a scheme most closely associated with an absurd run of talented tailbacks regularly coming downhill. This blended with a long-running concern about USC coach Will Muschamp stemming from his Florida days, the reputation that as a defensive coach his inclination was to run the ball often.
And more often than not when fans see a run-heavy offense, there is often a baked-in assumption it will be both less exciting and less effective than something more wide open. (Pose to most fans the idea of their team running the triple option and see the reaction.)
Much of that lament died down as these things often do. But in that process, a key detail seemed to get glossed over.
In the Will Muschamp era, South Carolina has been one of the more pass-happy teams one will find, and it has not translated into either consistent success or that level of excitement.
In four seasons, the current regime went through two offensive coordinators: Kurt Roper, who brought schemes from Duke’s David Cutcliffe; and Bryan McClendon, who tried to install an RPO-heavy scheme, which trends toward passing because of how defenses tend to structure.
Here is where the Gamecocks ranked in terms of the percentage of the time they ran against FBS opponents:
▪ 2016: 87th
▪ 2017: 95th
▪ 2018: 101st
▪ 2019: 116th
Those numbers were about in line with Steve Spurrier’s teams, outside the 2010-13 window. It’s also worth noting the bottom group in that number is usually pure air-raid teams.
So through this, we see the Gamecocks have moved toward throwing it more — and have done so without much pattern of offensive success following. The jumps after 2016 and 2017 saw more passing and offensive improvement, but then more passing came alongside a sharp decline in success in 2019.
It’s all a far cry from the offenses Muschamp had as a head coach before he came to Columbia. His four Florida attacks were in the top-30 nationally in how often they ran against FBS opposition:
▪ 2011: 26th
▪ 2012: 11th
▪ 2013: 22nd
▪ 2014: 20th
In the end, the Gamecocks offense has gone to the more pass-heavy reaches of the sport, and it has yielded offenses that neither produce consistently nor keep fans from lamenting them. Muschamp’s first USC offense had so few pieces it basically only played two wide receivers. His second and fourth got their coordinators fired or demoted.
And the best offense of the Muschamp era, the 2018 unit, was woefully inconsistent through the first half of the season, suddenly caught fire across five games and then got skunked in the bowl game.
This isn’t to say that going more balanced will suddenly solve things. The Gamecocks will be breaking in a new group of running backs, are short at receiver and need some drastic improvement at QB.
The main takeaway is that no matter how much a team throws it around the yard, it only generates excitement if those balls are consistently caught. Effective offense is exciting no matter if it’s spreading things out or coming downhill. And although most top offenses are now high-speed, spread-out affairs, their success doesn’t rest on that attribute.
The Gamecocks have shown over the years that just because a team throws a lot doesn’t guarantee an offense that’s exciting or effective. The only key is doing a range of things better — blocking, play-making — and that can happen no matter what the scheme looks like.
