Will South Carolina’s offense look any different coming off a bye?
There is this illusion about the bye week that it is the washing machine for a struggling football team. Load up a flawed unit, toss in a Tide Pod and let it run on a week-long spin cycle and voila, you’ve got a fresh, stain-free squad.
Rarely, though, does it produce such drastic change.
Can there be some meaningful tweaks? Of course. But is a run-heavy team suddenly going to transform into an Air Raid offense with a quarterback throwing the ball 45 times a game? Doubtful.
Which brings us to South Carolina offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, who has been expected to turn around his struggling group for two months now. What started as young guys needing time to figure things out has led us to November, where South Carolina is in the bottom five of the SEC in total yards, passing yards, first downs, third-down conversions, penalties, sacks against and more.
Can that all get turned around during a single bye week? First, let’s access what exactly happens during a college bye week.
After the Gamecocks’ blowout of Oklahoma, South Carolina practiced on Tuesday and Wednesday, then the coaches left for the weekend to go recruiting. So, really, there were only two, maybe three days where coaches were really able to grind the tape and find solutions.
And solutions, it should be noted, are not always new concepts.
“The hardest things in coaching sometimes,” Loggains said, “is to say, ‘Hey, this is what we do well. This is what we’re not doing well. Let’s do more of this and less of that.’ ”
So perhaps South Carolina will look different because it will find some wrinkle, some scheme that has been underutilized. Maybe the triple option that the Gamecocks are running is actually working better than the coaches thought and, well, it’s not being called enough. Or maybe it needs to be scrapped.
But the self-scout, Loggains noted, gets even more specific. How many yards per carry are the Gamecocks picking up on runs to the left? What about runs to the right? Is quarterback LaNorris Sellers getting sacked more from one side? Is one guy getting beat more than the coaching staff thought?
Loggains calls those guys “repeat offenders” and the bye week is the perfect opportunity to assess then decide if those guys need to be sidelined.
“If something keeps happening multiple times (with) these repeat offenders,” Loggains said, “like, hey, we need to fix this problem or we need to look and see, can we create competition at (that position).”
According to Pro Football Focus’ grading system, Gamecocks true freshman left tackle Josiah Thompson’ s pass blocking has graded out No. 473 among all FBS offensive tackles. Right tackle Cason Henry is at No. 384. Both of their run-blocking grades are well into the 500s.
Is there anyone on South Carolina’s roster who can perform better? Maybe there isn’t. But if that’s not identified during a bye week in late October, it’ll never be.
The problem is: South Carolina doesn’t get some cupcake off the bye. It can make whatever tweak it wants and No. 10 Texas A&M, led by 6-foot-4, 285-pound defensive lineman Nic Scorton, will be waiting on Saturday night (7:30 p.m., ABC).
If there’s a spot for improvement this week, though, look to Sellers. The Gamecocks’ passing game, hampered by 32 sacks (second most in FBS), has struggled this season and Sellers has thrown for over 200 yards just once — in a loss to Alabama.
Maybe that changes on Saturday, against an Aggies defense that’s allowing over 270 yards passing in SEC games (second most in the conference).
This story was originally published October 31, 2024 at 8:00 AM.
