Where offensive coordinator Mike Shula wants QB LaNorris Sellers to grow this spring
Mike Shula doesn’t seem to like backyard football.
The Gamecocks’ first-year offensive coordinator spent all of last season as an analyst, working under then-OC Dowell Loggains in a role that essentially amounted to assistant quarterbacks coach.
Which meant he watched very closely the emergence of redshirt freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers. He watched the Florence native transform into one of the top quarterbacks in the country, in large part, by doing ridiculous things when plays broke down.
The best example came in the regular-season finale against Clemson. Third and 16. Gamecocks down four. Nobody was open. The protection completely broke down. And Sellers ad-libbed, running for the first down, then cutting — and cutting again — into the end zone.
Did Shula cheer that play? Surely. But the goal is for Sellers to be in that spot less, not more.
“The faster you can process and make good decisions with the football,” Shula said on Monday, “the less you may have to run with the football.”
Shula was quick to follow that point up with another: He is not trying to make Sellers some 1970s pocket-passer. Shula wants Sellers to run wild — just “on our own terms,” the OC said.
“Not because,” Shula continued, “well, maybe I didn’t quite understand the read. Or I didn’t see this, or I’m late on doing that (and) now I have to run. We want him to run because he wants to, not because he has to.”
Why is that important?
Let’s think back to earlier last season. Before South Carolina went on to win its final six regular-season games, it lost a heartbreaker to Alabama. Beyond the ridiculous Nyck Harbor touchdown and a botched two-point conversion, the consensus coming out of that game was unflattering.
Sellers had a fumbling problem. In just five games, the Gamecocks quarterback had coughed the ball up seven times — more than any other player in college football. It might have been a bigger deal, but South Carolina recovered most of Sellers’ fumbles.
That is part of what Shula is talking about. Being a running quarterback is great. Being a quarterback who waits and waits before running can be dangerous.
Which is why this spring, Shula’s top goal is to improve the processing of his star quarterback.
Shula talks about processing constantly. In the quarterback meeting room, he shows film of other quarterbacks and asks his guys to analyze it. He shows Sellers tape of himself on a certain play then quizzes him: “Now if we have this play in that same exact look, what are we doing?”
Basically, Shula is trying to throw a billion different scenarios and situations at his quarterback until he knows exactly what to do and where to look on every single play against any possible defense.
“We have a set of rules for every play and because you can’t go through all the situations,” Shula said, “those rules are set up basically to respond in a positive way when things aren’t the way the coach said. Or they aren’t the way it was drawn up.”
In other words: There are times to run — when South Carolina’s rules dictate.
If he reacts along the guidelines, Shula said, Sellers can create all the magic he wants. That’s where the fun begins.
“You throw in the fact that you have a guy like him who can create on his own,” he added, “that becomes like icing on the cake.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2025 at 7:20 AM.
