Projecting Luke Doty’s 2021 season and what it means for South Carolina
South Carolina’s offseason of change rolls on.
Head coach Shane Beamer is entering his first summer at the helm in Columbia. Offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield continues his development of the Gamecock offense.
And while few certainties exist four months from the season opener against Eastern Illinois under a new staff, quarterback Luke Doty is perhaps the most crucial piece to an offense continuing to find its identity.
To date, Doty’s actual output has been limited. He appeared in eight games a season ago but attempted passes in only three. He finished the 2020 campaign 43 of 71 for 405 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. His 41 rushes for 91 yards weren’t stellar on paper, though they offered a glimpse of the athleticism that made him the No. 4 dual-threat quarterback in the 2020 recruiting class.
“I got thrown into it last season at the very end of the year — which I’m so grateful for,” Doty said ahead of the spring game. “That taught me a lot then and it sure is slowing things down now. So it’s definitely been a lot of fun. Obviously, there’s still a lot to work on, but I’m really excited for what’s to come.”
Yet for the up-and-down nature of Doty’s actual on-field performance, both Beamer and Satterfield spent the spring raving on their soon-to-be starting quarterback. They lauded his maturity and work ethic, while praising his ability to lead. Beamer went as far as naming him the No. 1 signal-caller heading out of the spring.
But what might a full season of Doty look like?
Satterfield spent his final media press conference of the spring explaining how he’s conceptually drawn from Joe Brady’s offenses at LSU in 2019 — one of the most dominant in college football history — and with the 2020 Carolina Panthers, for whom Satterfield worked as an assistant offensive line coach last season.
Guiding LSU to the 2019 national championship, former Tiger quarterback and current Cincinnati Bengal Joe Burrow finished his career in Baton Rouge as the school’s all-time leader in career completion percentage (68.5), passing yards per game (305.9), TD passes (76), 300-yard passing games (15), 400-yard passing games (4) and total yards (9,332).
“Trying to mimic Joe’s offense, we’ll never do that,” Satterfield conceded in April. “I mean we’ll try, but they had some really, really, really good dudes playing that year. But it’s going to resemble it and the philosophy and the foundation is definitely going to look a lot like LSU did that year.”
Satterfield’s cautioning aside, the shape of the offense should most closely mimic the Tigers schematically. On 1,080 offensive snaps in 2019, LSU passed on 52.5% percent of plays. South Carolina, by contrast, ran the ball on more than 55% of its snaps in 2020 under former offensive coordinator Mike Bobo.
Should Doty’s career numbers be spread across Burrow’s 527 attempts in 2019, he’d project to finish in the neighborhood of 321 completions for 1,831 yards and nine touchdowns.
And while those prognostications might look pedestrian at best, a three-headed rushing attack in senior ZaQuandre White, junior Kevin Harris and freshman MarShawn Lloyd ought to open more lanes to allow Doty to improve on his 5.7 yards per attempt, which ranked lowest in the SEC last season.
“We can help Luke out a lot and Luke can help me out a lot,” White said after South Carolina’s spring game. ”Just telling him every day: ‘If you need I’ll help you. If I need help you help me.’ (He’s) just that type of guy.”
In just one year in Columbia, Doty has shown flashes of brilliance and a dangerous dual-threat nature that has fans excited about his prospects. But his passing numbers to date suggest he’ll have to take a step forward as a thrower for South Carolina’s offense to function as it hopes.
247Sports compared Doty as a prep prospect to former Texas star and longtime NFL veteran Colt McCoy. If Doty ends up anywhere near the quarterback McCoy was during his time in Austin — a span in which he set the school record for wins by a quarterback — South Carolina will find a navigable path to re-establishing the aura of the recent but fading memories of the Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier eras.
“I know there’s a lot of stuff for me personally to get better at, just to improve myself going into the summer and then going into the fall once we get into camp,” Doty said after the spring game. “I really don’t consider whether (I’m) starting or not. It’s really about coming into work every single day with the desire to get better and to make everyone around me better.”
SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL 2021 SCHEDULE
- Sept. 4 - vs. Eastern Illinois
- Sept. 11 - at East Carolina
- Sept. 18 - at Georgia
- Sept. 25 - vs. Kentucky
- Oct. 2 - vs. Troy
- Oct. 9 - at Tennessee
- Oct. 16 - vs. Vanderbilt
- Oct. 23 - at Texas A&M
- Oct. 30 - BYE
- Nov. 6 - vs. Florida
- Nov. 13 - at Missouri
- Nov. 20 - vs. Auburn
- Nov. 27 - vs. Clemson
