Ball security is a big problem for South Carolina. How the offense hopes to fix that
There might not be anything that drives Dowell Loggains crazier than fumbles. In his own words, it drives him nuts.
“Most of the time, the fumbles are a technique thing and when I look at those things that I, and the quarterbacks had two of them, so I hold myself accountable,” Loggains said. “That’s where I start to get frustrated with myself. Obviously, what I’m doing is not working and I need to find a different way to challenge them fundamentally on those things.”
Like on Saturday, South Carolina had a 10-point lead and faced a third and long situation midway through the second quarter. With LSU bringing pressure, LaNorris Sellers didn’t have much space to move. So he took a sack but fumbled to give the Tigers prime field position.
In those situations, Loggains would be happier with Sellers cutting his losses and throwing the ball away. At the same time, though, he was impressed with his ability to check the play down.
“He checks the play and I’m in the box saying, ‘What’s he doing?’ I’m asking the signal guys, I’m like, ‘Hey you two, what play did you signal in?'” Loggains said. “And I see him making this and then all of a sudden, I’m like, ‘Oh, wow. He just checked that. He saw it.’ It was an incredible check. But when we don’t get the other 10 guys to do their job, let’s end it every series with a kick.”
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Ball security has been a persistent issue for South Carolina so far this season. The Gamecocks have fumbled nine times this year, losing three of them. For the first time all year, the fumbles bit the offense in a 36-33 loss to LSU on Saturday.
Both of South Carolina’s fumbles lost came in third-down situations, putting the Tigers in great spots to score. Fortunately, the defense held them to only three points afterwards. However, it’s something that cannot continue to happen.
“You’re not going to beat SEC teams when you turn the ball over three times. Look, the picks and interceptions are going to happen. Peyton Manning is one the best quarterbacks of all time, if not the best and he still has the rookie record for most interceptions thrown,” Loggains said.
“The clock in our heads on some of these third down things, the ball either has to come out, we have to run it, or we check the ball down. But we can’t sit back there all day and hold those things because both the fumbles were on third down.”
With this being a real problem, the question now becomes, what is South Carolina doing from its own standpoint to lessen how many times the ball is on the ground?
“We do some sort of; we call it turnover tackle circuit. We call it stiff arm where you sideline and back and everyone works on stiff arming with ball security. And then another one we call is stumble bum where you run and your hand goes down to the ground and the defender is trying to pop it out,” head coach Shane Beamer said.
“We do what we call double ball where you put two balls in each hand and a lot of college teams do this. We have other drills that we do for that. We do it every Tuesday and Wednesday during practice. In addition, after that is over, we always start practice like (Monday) with a takeaway circuit where the defense works on taking the ball away but then also another ball security circuit just for the offense.”
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It’s also not just a problem that only quarterbacks are having. In that same LSU game, Josh Simon caught a 12-yard pass from Sellers but fumbled as he was running. Luckily for him, Michael Smith quickly fell on the ball. But it’s something that is just an offensive issue in general.
“When you are running it, make sure you are carrying the ball the way that we teach you to carry it,” Beamer said. “… We teach to get that ball on the outside hand because the pursuit is coming from inside out. It is frustrating, but at the same time, something that we are emphasizing but we have to do a better job of emphasizing it, for sure.”
Once South Carolina does get it resolved, it’s only going to benefit the offense and allow Loggains to do more. Outside of the one fumble, Sellers was playing great before his ankle sprain injury right before halftime. Minimize the mistakes and it becomes that much easier to have success.
“LaNorris was playing his best half football without a question, without a doubt. Once he was seeing and the game started slowing down, all of a sudden, you start to feel as a play caller that you’re Superman because hey, I can call anything.” Loggains said. “… Now you’re like, hey, this guy’s starting to see it and it’s starting to slow down a little bit for him. But then when someone doesn’t do their job, you have the ball last, you have the ability to erase any mistake from someone else and don’t let someone else’s mistake become yours.”
