Why Mike Bobo’s steady hand, message matters to close out turbulent Gamecocks season
The approach is what interim Gamecocks coach Mike Bobo has been saying for a while. At times, especially in these times, it’s about all you can say.
South Carolina’s football season has come through a hurricane of change and is just now starting to repair things. The pandemic was a shakeup. A three-game defensive implosion shattered hopes after a win over Auburn seemed to make up for an opening defeat.
That all cost Will Muschamp his job. Multiple starters, two with NFL potential, left. The team still had three more games, a QB change, a new coach hire. And now a bowl in a two-win season.
Bobo, who seems to have a good chance to stay on new coach Shane Beamer’s staff, has to guide the team through one more week. This group has just about every reason to call it quits and go through the motions now, outside of the baseline interest in playing football.
So Bobo started pointing to the small things, those little daily acts that carry a team forward.
“You can’t say enough for experience,” Bobo said. “When you have experience, good or bad, and you learn from that, that’s going to help you down the road, and that was kind of my message.
“So another opportunity for us to play, that’s an opportunity for you to gain experience and to grow individually and grow as a football team. If they’ll take that mindset, that attitude, we’ll have a chance to improve. And every opportunity to have a chance to improve, you can’t waste that.”
What happens in this week of bowl practice won’t be terribly impactful when it comes to future seasons. As soon as the game is done, at the very least large chunks of the offensive and defensive schemes they are running will be scrapped. Some concepts and elements will likely stay, as well as some parts of the way the team does things now, because some assistants will be held over.
But with Beamer taking over, a lot of that day-to-day operation should look different.
There are still baseline skills that can be honed, still little tricks or techniques or finer points that will carry over. And if nothing else, the Gamecocks will work on that as they get one last chance to play ball this season.
As the season spiraled and the roster found itself in a more brittle state each week, the message from the coach seem to stick on that: Take advantage of every chance because that’s how you build toward something down the road.
For so much of the process, it seemed uncertain if he would be able to see the even the next step in Columbia. It’s an unusual role, steward of a ship until it gets a new captain. And he gave the kind of message that was needed for now and for later, staying static for just a little longer before rapidly shifting toward the future.
“If you truly are a coach, you got in it to help young people and help them reach some goals and see them grow,” Bobo said. “Not just on the field, but off the field, and help them learn how to fight through adversity.
“We have a chance to make more of a difference in these kids’ lives right now, when basically you know what has hit the fan in all directions, and in showing them how to respond in the right way.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 10:15 AM.
