‘We stopped ourselves’: Dropped passes hinder Will Muschamp and the Gamecocks
The box score Saturday said Collin Hill ended the first half of South Carolina football’s game with Florida at 10-of-18 passing, a completion percentage of 55.6% that would seem to indicate a quarterback struggling with accuracy.
But the numbers didn’t do Hill justice in the mind of Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp.
“Collin was very accurate with the football, competed his ass off,” Muschamp said after USC’s 38-24 loss. “But we just didn’t catch the ball very well.”
Drops haunted Carolina at different points throughout the 2019 and 2018 seasons, and they made their presence felt again Saturday, starting on USC’s second drive of the game. After Hill started 5-for-5 to guide the offense down the field for an opening touchdown, he faced a third-and-9 situation when tight end Nick Muse got free in the middle of the field.
Hill’s pass was slightly behind Muse but hit him in both arms before popping out. And thus began a string of drops that stagnated the Carolina attack.
“Offensively in the first half, moving the football, we stopped ourselves,” Muschamp said. “I think we had five or six drops in the game, (including) on a critical third down, where we get a first down if we stay alive with a catch, and we don’t catch the football.”
The problem wasn’t just Muse — junior Josh Vann couldn’t corral a slightly tipped ball that hit his hands; sophomore Xavier Legette let a screen pass hit him in the chest and bounce off; and senior Shi Smith and freshman Rico Powers both had passes hit them and carom off just before Florida defenders laid hits on them.
When asked how he planned to address the drops in practice, Muschamp seemed to indicate the issue was mostly in execution.
“Our guys are on the JUGS machines every day. So we work on those things at practice all the time, but we’ll go back and see if we can’t teach it better and get better production from our players,” Muschamp said.
The issue did get better in the second half, as Hill completed 18-of-29 passes for a 62% completion rate. And Hill himself focused more on the throws he missed than the ones his receivers failed to catch, particularly his last attempt. That fourth-and-goal toss to Shi Smith in the end zone missed its target and ended any slim hope the Gamecocks had for a comeback.
“Next play, next play mentality,” Hill said of his message to the receivers. “I miss throws, I missed the last throw and he was wide open, couldn’t get more open than that. We understand nobody’s perfect. Drops happen. You move on to the next play. I thought we bounced back good in the second half, made some plays, but obviously we didn’t make enough.”
Two plays before that missed throw, though, on second-and-goal, Hill lofted a pass to Smith in the end zone just as he was hit. Smith shook off the Gator defender just in time to have the ball hit both his hands and fall to the turf, a moment before another Florida defensive back arrived.
“There was nothing that I think they were doing to stop us,” Muschamp said. “We had opportunities on third down, opportunities for big plays, we had opportunities to keep the chains moving. And we don’t do it.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2020 at 6:58 PM.
