South Carolina debuts its new-look offense. Why the early returns are mixed
The offseason between South Carolina football’s 2023 and 2024 campaigns contained two key storylines:
▪ One, what will the Gamecocks offense look like without Spencer Rattler and Xavier Legette?
▪ And two, after failing to qualify for a bowl game last season, 2024 will be a defining year of the Shane Beamer era.
USC’s season opener versus Old Dominion did not inspire confidence on either front.
South Carolina’s total offensive yardage (288) against a non-Power 4 school it payed $1.5 million to beat at home would’ve ranked ninth among 2023’s 12 outings. And beating ODU by four points (23-19) after being favored by 20.5 before kickoff didn’t exactly extinguish the flames under Beamer’s seat.
But the fourth-year head coach promised in his postgame press conference that next weekend — and the 10 weekends after that — would be better.
He said he wasn’t making excuses for his team’s lackluster performance (which he called “unacceptable”) but also cautioned folks from reading too much into it. Week 1 football is always sloppy, and anything can happen.
Only five offensive starters from 2023 are back for USC’s new season — with the QB, running back, receiver and offensive line rooms all full of new faces.
“We’re a young football team,” Beamer said. “We started a true freshman left tackle (Josiah Thompson). We got a redshirt freshman quarterback (LaNorris Sellers). We’re gonna have to live through some growing pains.”
Only four of the 12 players who touched the ball Saturday night were Gamecocks last season: Sellers (who redshirted), running back Juju McDowell, wide receiver Payton Mangrum and tight end Josh Simon. And of USC’s starting offensive linemen, three made their garnet-and-black debut: Thompson, Torricelli Simpkins III and Kamaar Bell. While starting right tackle Cason Henry is technically a returner, he missed 10 games a year ago with a knee injury. Chemistry takes time.
Last year, South Carolina’s offense featured an abysmal run game and a pass-first quarterback. So Saturday’s run-pass split (56-23) would not have happened in 2023. Sellers and starting tailback Raheim “Rocket” Sanders (also a newbie from Arkansas) each had more than 20 carries — 22 and 24, respectively. Last season’s leading rusher Mario Anderson only hit or eclipsed 20 carries twice.
A lot of Sellers’ runs against ODU were designed, Beamer said, a strategic decision by the coaching staff to exploit Old Dominion’s defense and take advantage of Sellers’ talents. But “we don’t want to run him 22 times a game like we did tonight,” Beamer said. “... We’ve got to continue to be better around him.”
The Gamecocks are 15-3 under Beamer when they rush for 100-plus yards, and 13-4 when they win time of possession — which USC did Saturday by over 11-and-a-half minutes. While it seemed the offensive line struggled at times to create holes for Sellers and Sanders to run through, Beamer said skill-position players around the front five need to block better moving forward.
As far as addressing the youth goes, Beamer shared his halftime locker room message to young guys like Thompson, tight end Michael Smith and wide receiver Mazeo Bennett with media after the game:
“All right, you ain’t a freshman anymore now. You just played a half of SEC football, and we’re past that excuse.”
Now is the time to learn from the experience, clean up the drops, eliminate pre-snap penalties (such as Thompson’s costly false start on fourth-and-3 that forced USC to punt), et al.
Because next Saturday at Kentucky could very well make or break South Carolina’s season.
This story was originally published September 1, 2024 at 8:00 AM.
