From 2016 to now, the highs and lows of the Will Muschamp era at South Carolina
With Sunday’s news that South Carolina fired football coach Will Muschamp, let’s take a look back at the highs and the lows of the Muschamp era in Columbia.
December 2015 — Muschamp is hired
After the messy departure of Steve Spurrier midway through the 2015 season, South Carolina’s coaching search wound through a lot of names before it landed on the former Florida head coach and Auburn defensive coordinator. Tom Herman, Kirby Smart and Lincoln Riley were all rumored at one point or another to be targets, but Muschamp wound up being the guy.
National experts weren’t exactly wild about the hire, but Spurrier gave his blessing and athletics director Ray Tanner fiercely defended the choice.
September 2016 — Starting off with a bang
Muschamp’s first game in garnet and black was a thriller against Vanderbilt on the road, as the Gamecocks rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to top a pretty decent Commodores squad, 13-10. Elliot Fry hit a career-long 55-yard field goal with less than a minute to play to put USC ahead and “jump-start” Muschamp’s tenure.
October 2016 — Jake Bentley arrives
Bentley, the four-star QB son of Gamecocks coach Bobby Bentley, reclassified and enrolled early at USC but spent the first part of his freshman year on the bench behind veteran Perry Orth and fellow freshman Brandon McIlwain. Coming out of the bye week, though, he took over against Massachusetts and never looked back, leading the Gamecocks on a 4-2 finish to the regular season to secure a bowl bid. That stretch even included a win over a ranked opponent, No. 18 Tennessee.
September-November 2017 — Luck of the Gamecocks
The peak of the Will Muschamp era, the 2017 season featured eight regular-season wins that included five one-score games and a lot of thrilling football. Jake Bentley took over the offense, setting career highs in completions, attempts and completion percentage, while tight end Hayden Hurst emerged as a top-end NFL talent. The defense also led the SEC in turnovers and finished 25th nationally in points allowed per game.
Not everything was perfect, however. At the end of the regular season, Muschamp fired offensive coordinator Kurt Roper, who he had brought with him from Florida, citing the need for more production out of a unit that played at a slow pace and put up relatively pedestrian numbers, wins aside.
January 2018 — Outback Bowl comeback
South Carolina vs. Michigan in the Outback Bowl — the same matchup that in 2013 capped one of Steve Spurrier’s finest seasons at USC and featured “The Hit” from Jadeveon Clowney — will also go down in program history as the likely peak of the Will Muschamp era. Coming off an overachieving season, the Gamecocks were leaps and bounds better than the 3-9 mark of 2015 and finished it all off with a comeback win over a Wolverine squad led by Jim Harbaugh.
In the postgame locker room celebration, Muschamp famously uttered the mantra “All gas, no brakes” to describe his ambitions to push South Carolina to championship-level heights.
September 2018 — Momentum crushed
Coming off the high of that Outback Bowl win, the Gamecocks entered the 2018 season with big expectations and kicked things off by soundly whipping Coastal Carolina. That led to the team’s only appearance in the AP poll during Muschamp’s tenure at No. 24, heading into a home matchup with No. 3 Georgia.
Playing in the prime CBS slot in front of a frenzied sellout crowd, the Gamecocks got just four plays into the game before the Bulldogs returned a Jake Bentley interception for a touchdown. From there, USC never recovered, losing a 41-17 rout that set the tone for a frustrating season.
December 2018 — Belk Bowl disaster
Having failed to live up to outsized expectations but still managing to go 7-5, South Carolina got an invite to the Belk Bowl in nearby Charlotte to play ACC foe Virginia. Senior receiver Deebo Samuel announced he would skip the game to prepare for the NFL Draft, but the Gamecocks insisted they would be ready for the matchup, where they were slight betting favorites.
Instead, USC fell flat on its face in a 28-0 defeat to the Cavaliers. It was a humiliating loss that killed any momentum heading into the offseason and put the fan base in a collective bad mood.
September 2019 — Bentley down, Hilinski in
Returning to the scene of its grisly Belk Bowl loss in Charlotte, South Carolina had the chance to redeem itself in its season opener North Carolina — and blew an 11-point fourth quarter lead to fall, 24-20. Making matters even worse, Bentley went down with a foot injury on the final play of the game, knocking him out for the rest of his senior season. That left highly hyped but unproven true freshman Ryan Hilinski to captain the Gamecock offense.
October 2019 — Upsetting Georgia
The betting odds against South Carolina going into its road game against No. 4 Georgia were some of the largest it has ever faced in the rivalry series — the Gamecocks were expected to be thrashed soundly by a superior Bulldog squad competing for the College Football Playoff.
Instead, the Gamecocks relied on three interceptions from Israel Mukuamu, just enough offense from Hilinski and backup Dakereon Joyner after Hilinski was hurt, and a missed UGA field goal in overtime to pull off the biggest upset and definitive win of Muschamp’s tenure.
November 2019 — Collapse and lots of public statements
The win over Georgia was supposed to mark the beginning of a turnaround for the Gamecocks. Instead, a narrow loss to Florida turned into a 1-5 slide to end the year, including a home loss to Appalachian State and one-sided affairs against Texas A&M and Clemson.
As fans’ discontent grew throughout the 4-8 campaign, USC’s new president, Bob Caslen, made several remarks while visiting newsrooms throughout the state that seemed to imply Muschamp’s future wasn’t secure, forcing him and AD Ray Tanner to issue further public statements backtracking those comments. All in all, it was a messy situation befitting a messy end to a messy season.
December 2019 — Mike Bobo hired
Muschamp survived that 4-8 season, but his offensive coordinator, Bryan McClendon, didn’t. Almost as soon as the year ended, McClendon was relieved of his playcalling duties, sending Muschamp in search of his third OC in five years. And that wasn’t the only job that opened up — QBs coach Dan Werner, running backs coach Thomas Brown, defensive line coach John Scott, special teams coordinator Coleman Hutzler and strength and conditioning coach Jeff Dillman all left the program as well.
For the most important position at OC, Muschamp wound landing on another Georgia alum — Mike Bobo, who had just been let go as head coach of Colorado State and had plenty of SEC playcalling experience at UGA. With Bobo installing a more pro-style offense and bringing in CSU graduate transfer quarterback Collin Hill to compete for the starting job, the hire marked Muschamp’s last big swing to save his job.
January 2020 — Jordan Burch stays home
Part of Muschamp’s reputation as a coach is his skill as a recruiter, and he spent much of the first few years of his tenure modernizing USC’s recruiting operation. That started to pay dividends as South Carolina cracked the top 20 of 247Sports class rankings in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and signed its fair share of blue-chip talent.
And no blue-chipper was as highly coveted as five-star hometown kid Jordan Burch. At one point ranked the No. 1 overall recruit in the country, Burch, a defensive end, was pursued by national powers all over in a recruitment process that played out almost entirely in secret. After some late drama, Muschamp finally got Burch’s signature in the late signing period, fending off the likes of LSU, Clemson and Georgia to keep the state’s best recruit since Jadeveon Clowney in Columbia.
October/November 2020 — Defensive meltdown
Going into a season shortened to 10 games, all in the SEC, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, expectations weren’t that high for South Carolina in 2020. And sure enough, after four games it was 2-2, with a disappointing opening loss to Tennessee offset by an upset of No. 15 Auburn.
Then, of course, came the one-two punch of consecutive blowouts to LSU on the road and Texas A&M at home. The Gamecocks weren’t favored in either game, but the completely one-sided nature of both contests raised discussion around Muschamp’s future.
Then the Gamecocks went on the road to Ole Miss on Saturday and lost, 59-42. Over the past three games, USC’s defense has given up 159 points and 1,779 yards of offense.
Nov. 15, 2020 — Muschamp fired
Shortly after 7 p.m. on Sunday, the school announced that Muschamp was relieved as head coach of the Gamecocks. He finishes his time at South Carolina with a 28-30 record, 17-22 in SEC play.
This story was originally published November 15, 2020 at 7:19 PM.
