What South Carolina coaches were ‘hoping for’ with late clock management
South Carolina football coach Will Muschamp’s voice turned exasperated as he discussed it again.
The Gamecocks coach had given three vaguely similar answers on Saturday about an 18-play drive against the Florida Gators that ate up most of the game’s final eight minutes with his team down 14 points. USC ended up not scoring and holding a pair of unused timeouts, which weren’t enough to get the ball back.
Muschamp was asked Sunday if he’d taken anything more from watching that final drive on film. Despite sounding irked, he delivered some key details, and he started with an obvious point.
“We didn’t want to run seven minutes off the clock,” Muschamp said. “We needed to score a touchdown to make it a one-score game.”
His team got the ball on its 22-yard line with 8:11 left in the fourth quarter, down 38-24. Muschamp’s Sunday commentary jumped to a fourth-down conversion on the South Carolina 49 with around five minutes left.
“We talked in terms, on the sideline, we need to speed it up a little bit,” Muschamp said.
There was 5:12 on the clock when the Gamecocks converted. The coach described the next series of plays, first a 12-yard scramble from quarterback Collin Hill (he got out of bounds) and then a sprint out pass to Rico Powers for another first down.
At that point, the Gamecocks had around 3:42 left on the Florida 25. Then came a series that “created some issues,” in Muschamp’s words.
“(Hill scrambles), the clock continues to run,” Muschamp said. “We run an RPO, thinking we’re going to throw it, they jump into man. We had an opportunity for an explosive run there. We didn’t cut off the guard or we have a big run.”
That run was a draw, and if a defensive tackle didn’t work off his block, Deshaun Fenwick did have a lot of green space ahead of him.
“The clock is still running and it’s third and 2,” Muschamp said. “The most important thing ... we have to score a touchdown, now we’ve got to get the first down.”
The coach said they had a play called in and Hill changed it, which took more time, and then the play only netted 1 yard (a tight end got pushed back, leaving a linebacker unblocked on the outside).
Then the Gamecocks switched into a heavy look and huddled, calling a power run to convert fourth and 1 with under two minutes to go.
“Instead of calling timeout there, we made a decision that they were gassed on defense,” Muschamp said. “We’d rather put our big people in the game, which we did, on fourth and 1 to make sure we got the first down because, again, let’s go back to the goal of the draw was a score touchdown. That’s what we had to have in order to give us a chance.”
At that point the thinking shifted to scoring and then attempting an onside kick.
Running back Kevin Harris caught a swing pass but went for more yards instead of getting out of bounds, letting 17 seconds bleed off before the next snap. The Gamecocks missed the next four passes and the game was over.
The coach got back to saying the offense needed to be a little faster in that final five minutes faster and “crisper.” One detail be mentioned was that in a true one-minute approach, the team sticks with one formation, which would’ve prevented USC from moving offensive workhorse Shi Smith around to different spots.
Muschamp also said his perfect situation was scoring with at least 2:30 or three minutes left and being able to kick off with multiple timeouts to use.
“From my standpoint, from a time-management standpoint, you got two timeouts left,” Muschamp said. “So if we score a touchdown within two and a half to three minutes we can (kick off) the ball deep, use our timeouts and have an opportunity to get the ball back without no timeouts. Because generally if we had two timeouts on the change of possession or kick change, they can run off anywhere between 44 and 48 seconds, and then we’re getting the ball back for 45 seconds to a minute, which really is a long time in college football.
“So that’s what we’re hoping for, in that situation.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2020 at 8:01 PM.
