Gamecock mailbag: South Carolina offensive line must improve before trip to ECU

And so Week 1 is in the books.

South Carolina opened the Shane Beamer era with a 46-0 romp of FCS foe Eastern Illinois. But before we move on to the coming weekend’s contest against East Carolina, let’s answer a few questions on the week that was, shall we?

“What’s your opinion on the offensive line. I felt like we should have had better holes for our backs to run through.” — Jimmy T.

We talked about the offensive line in last week’s mailbag, but this is a good point from Jimmy.

Beamer met with reporters on Sunday night and expressed that South Carolina needed to be more physical at the point of attack, though that got better as the first game went along.

Perhaps more pressing than the run blocking issues was pass protection. According to Pro Football Focus, South Carolina’s pass blocking grade ranked tied-for-12th out of 14 SEC teams this week. USC, by contrast, finished third among league teams in run blocking per PFF.

Take into account the Gamecocks took on an FCS team that hasn’t won more than three games since 2017 — compared to say, Georgia, who took on No. 3 Clemson and whose line finished fourth in that same statistical category.

Zeb Noland was extremely accurate and got the ball out quickly on Saturday, but the protection has to be better against an ECU team that loves to mix up its blitzes.

“What did the other coaches that had never coached at a SC game think of the gameday atmosphere?”

We haven’t had a chance to catch up with any of Beamer’s assistants since the opener, but I’ll take this question as a chance to focus on South Carolina’s new head coach.

USC posted a video of Beamer standing at the foot of the tunnel during 2001 and you could see the emotion on his face. Eyes glossed over. Biting his lip. It hit hard.

Beamer’s certainly an emotional guy and we’ve talked all offseason about how much he wanted, politicked for and cares about his current job.

It’s only a head coach’s debut once and Beamer’s clearly meant a lot to him and his family — including his parents, Frank and Cheryl, who were at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday.

“Other than the one pass to Jenkins in the end zone that Zeb missed, it seemed Jenkins was nowhere on the field. Did he get hurt, or was there a reason his number wasn’t called again?” — Andrew L.

South Carolina is absurdly deep at tight end between do-it-all athlete Jaheim Bell, Nick Muse and St. Francis (Pennsylvania) transfer E.J. Jenkins.

Jenkins was only targeted the once when Noland overshot him just a smidge in the back of the end zone. Noland told reporters postgame that he wished he had the throw back because Jenkins deserved the score.

Jenkins is a massive target and fits well with what South Carolina wants to do in the red zone, but he was noticeably absent for much of the game.

We haven’t been told anything to think he’s injured, but it’ll be intriguing how he’s used going forward given how many bodies tight ends coach Erik Kimrey has to play with.

Over/under 10 fans that will travel to Greenville, SC instead of NC? — Mike G.

I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I realized there were two Greenvilles in the Carolinas until I moved to Columbia a couple months ago.

Before you hit the road for ECU this weekend, make sure you plug the right Greenville into your navigation. Don’t be “that guy.”

That said, I’m taking with the over.

Ben’s Best

This week I’ll go ahead and rate South Carolina’s best plays from the season opener. There’s plenty to choose from but I’ll roll with these:

1. Jordan Burch’s 63-yard INT return TD
   
   
2. Jaylan Foster’s INT on the first play of the game
3. Zeb Noland’s 4 TD performance (I know I’m cheating here, but I couldn’t pick just one)
4. ZaQuandre White’s 63-yard touchdown run
5. Jaheim Bell’s 65-yard touchdown run that was called back

Bonus Ranking

“I would like a power ranking of your top-5 Pirates (historical or fictional) please and thank you.” — Cam G.

This one comes at the suggestion of our good friend Cam and, frankly, with a trip to ECU on the horizon, why not? Let’s go ahead and rank some swashbucklers.

1. Blackbeard
   
   
2. Capt. Jack Sparrow
3. Mike Leach aka The Pirate
4. Long John Silver (Where my Robert Louis Stevenson fans at?)
5. Captain Crunch

Honorable mentions

• Captain Flint from “Blacksails”
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• ECU mascot PeeDee the Pirate

• Stede Bonnett

This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 9:48 AM.

Ben Portnoy

The State

Ben Portnoy is The State’s South Carolina Gamecocks football beat writer. He’s a 10-time Associated Press Sports Editors award honoree and has earned recognition from the Mississippi Press Association and the National Sports Media Association. Portnoy previously covered Mississippi State for the Columbus Commercial Dispatch and Indiana football for the Journal Gazette in Ft. Wayne, IN.