Dowell Loggains on changes to South Carolina's offensive line

After a disappointing performance against Tennessee, South Carolina’s offense made several adjustments coming out of the bye week. The most noticeable was who started where on the offensive line.

That starting five saw Tree Babalade at left tackle, Trai Jones at left guard, Nick Gargiulo at center, Trovon Baugh at right guard, and Vershon Lee at right tackle. The changes led to the Gamecocks putting up 37 points as an offense (not including the safety Florida took) and their most rushing yards since last year’s game against Tennessee (152).

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“I thought it was a group that gave us a chance in the run game and gave us a chance to do some different stuff schematically just by body types,” said offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains. “We weren’t relying on one scheme. Those guys played well together, which is hard to do. That doesn’t happen overnight. Normally, offensively, the bye week helps so much because you have ten days to work on an opponent and ten days to work on yourselves. Our guys took advantage of it and worked really hard that week and going into it.”

When Gargiulo arrived at South Carolina this past spring, there were discussions that the transfer could replace Eric Douglas as USC’s starting center. This made a lot of sense considering Gargiulo started ten games at center for Yale in 2022 en route to the Bulldogs capturing the Ivy League title. Ultimately, Lee made the move over from guard and started the first five games this season at center for USC.

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Even going back to their spring game with Jaylen Nichols sufferung a knee injury, the Gamecocks have been plagued by injuries this year to their offensive line. That’s led to USC having to play musical chairs including playing two true freshmen at OL.

“You don’t just make a change and say, ‘Okay, we’re good. We’re fine. This is the magic wand.’ Five guys still have to see the game through one set of eyes. You put Vershon over at right tackle and all of sudden, Trovon plays his best game. You effected this team in a positive because you changed positions and you just played so much and you are intelligent, you’re helping the guy next to you become a better player as well.”

That selflessness by Lee, as well as the entire offensive line as a unit, led to arguably the best offensive performance we’ve see this year by the Gamecocks. Aside from rushing for a season-high, Spencer Rattler was kept upright for the majority of the game. The Gators finished with two sacks but as we’ve seen throughout the course of the year, it was certainly a big improvement.

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“That’s what’s hard about the offensive line. It’s not just your five best players. It’s your five best as a group. Nick helping Tree and Trai coming in and being able to help communicate those things. I thought they did a good job in those type of things. There are still a couple things that playing together would help a little bit more, but they played well enough to win. That group did. They deserve a lot of credit.”

With Shane Beamer announcing on Thursday night at Carolina Calls that Lee will be out this week and possibly next week as well, there’s two questions heading into Saturday. The first, and the obvious question, is who starts at right tackle? The second is will USC shuffle their offensive line again or will they look to insert a different play at right tackle so they can keep some type of continuity?

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Personally, I hope they keep the other four where they’re at. Stick with what worked last week and hope that whoever starts at right tackle can rise to the occasion. As we all know though, that’s much easier said than done.

One player to keep an eye on is Jatavius Shivers. Beamer said on Thursday that Shivers has had, “his best two weeks of practice.” Vershon Lee out, perhaps we could see another true freshman on the OL this week. If not, Sidney Fugar was the one who replaced Lee when he went down against Florida.

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