Everything Mike Shula said going into South Carolina's final week of spring practice

South Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Shula spoke to the media on Monday to look ahead to the final week of spring practice. Here’s everything he had to say.

At this point, how much of your offense would you say is in? How much do you have to work on for the summer and preseason?

“Well, I think it’s always kind of pretty fluid. But like I said, from the beginning, we were here to build on a lot of the good things that we did last year, and we don’t want to mess that up. But as you do every year, whether or not you’ve been a coordinator, not if you’ve been in the system, you want to make sure what you what you’re doing is pulling from the year before, the stuff that you did well, and how you can continue to do it well and or make it better. And then look at the other things that maybe didn’t do well, decide if you want to move forward with them and tweak them or not. And then, as you said, you have your own little each, you know, whoever the coordinator just kind of has their own little flavor.

“But we have a foundation that we want to base it off from last year. I would say percentage-wise, off that, I think it’s our guys have done a really good job of understanding kind of where we want to go. I think the biggest thing, even maybe I should have said this to start with, it says you have so many new players now, right at the beginning that were different from last year’s. So you don’t want to spend a whole lot of time experimenting. You want to kind of spend time on the things that we are going to be our foundation. A lot of that’s going to be based on what we did last year.”

How would you assess Cutter Woods and how he’s progressing?

Yeah, so Cutter has done a really good job. He’s very conscientious kid. He’s a smart kid. He hasn’t had all the reps, obviously, being a young guy. But when he’s not in there, he’s like, kind of taking mental notes, and almost like a shadow. You can see him in the back, kind of practicing if he were in there. His improvement has increased on a very good level. Still got a lot to learn, just like all young guys do, but I’ve been pleased with both his mental and his physical part of his game.”

What are one or two things that you learned from the two scrimmages?

“I just think that you need to be consistent for our players so they can gain confidence by doing the same things over and over again. I think that we have young players that are getting better because of that. I think also just in general, sometimes there are trade-offs. The defense wants to try to stop us every drive in scrimmages. We want to try to score in every drive. But you have to also know what some of your goals are for spring ball, and that’s trying to find out as about as many players as you can.

“So you put guys in certain positions that maybe, you know, to find out how much they can handle. So that’s been really good. I think that’s been just as important, really, is maybe having success as far as whatever, moving the ball, touchdowns, or things like that. But you want to get that done as much as you can in the spring, so when the fall comes, you’ve got a bank of knowledge that you can, and these guys have a little bit of a foundation because of their reps. So it’s not just certain guys getting all the reps. We’re kind of mixing everybody in there together.”

Is there one thing, or maybe a couple of things, you really want to see Friday night, aside from no injuries that would just make you feel like it kind of capped off the spring ball the right way?

“Yeah. I mean, it’s going to sound a boring answer, but really, execution. You want guys that you’re going to have plays, defense go make plays, offense go make plays. But you just want guys, the best thing we could do other than keeping guys healthy is just guys mentally, just knowing what to do, before the ball snaps. Getting lined up quickly, and then knowing what to do and playing with confidence after the snap. And if it doesn’t work, but they know what they’re doing, you know, hey, we can build on that. We can keep continuing to coach and teach and get them better that way. But for guys just to kind of take what they’ve learned so far, take it from the meeting rooms to the practice field to the scrimmages, and now, you know, it’ll be a little bit more of a higher level, obviously, with playing in front of fans and things like that, to see how they can go from each step to the step.”

When you guys are playing on Friday, how much do you try and keep the playcalling “vanilla” and try not to show your hand too much, even though the game isn’t going to be on TV?

“I think just more so to let our guys go play. I mean, sometimes, a lot of times, we as coaches think we’re gurus, and we can try to out-scheme each other and this and that. You do want to kind of have success. So if there’s any place that we’re having that we struggled with against our defense, we got them on run in the spring game, which our defense got to say, ‘Yeah, that’s a lot of plays.’ But no, you just want our guys to go out there and feel comfortable with what they’re doing and then go execute. So I think that’d be the goal across the board.”

Is there maybe a pitch count for LaNorris Sellers of how many plays he’ll have before the other quarterbacks get to work?

“Yeah, for sure. You know, we haven’t really talked about that yet with Coach (Shane) Beamer. Obviously, he’ll kind of direct us in a certain way in that regard. But yeah, we want to have him, whatever that is, just same thing with him, feeling good about what he’s doing, seeing things, getting his eyes where they need to be, just making good decisions, and then playing with the guys that when he’s in there. Just wherever he’s in there, just getting a higher comfort level with them. Because I do think across the board, there’s going to be guys on offense at the skill position. We’re going to see a lot of guys probably next year. So it’s always good to kind of get that done in a more of a game-type situation.”

How do you, as an OC, handle the impending transfer portal window opening on Wednesday? Do you try and get ahead of some of those conversations, or just wait until after the spring game?

“I just think that we have guys that are kind of, I’m sure, looking at that in all of our department with Coach Beamer and all that. And just kind of wait for them to, you know, we have our own guys we’ve got to focus on as offensive coaches and getting those guys better. And then, I do think, to your point, it’s more of something that’s got to be more on the forefront of our minds than ever before. But I think we have people that are kind of taking the point on that. We’ll just kind of follow their lead.”

Just a hypothetical, but as an OC and quarterback coach, play caller, how disruptive would it be to see your starting quarterback leave your program at the end of a spring practice, whether it’s via free agency or maybe like an injury?

“Well, I think anybody would say, yeah, if you have a guy that you have as a starter, and let’s say, all of a sudden he goes down, whatever an injury. Yeah, that’s, I mean, but that’s our job as coaches, too. You have to coach the guys who are in there and then coach the guys that have a chance to be, you know, that could have to step in at a moment’s notice for the rest of the year. So you prepare like that from day one of the offseason. You talk to your guys really til you’re blue in the face. Hey, when you’re not in there, be looking at the guy who’s in. Don’t make the same mistake. Learn from that position. So whoever that person is in, whatever position, they have to be ready to step in, and that’s our job too. But yeah, it’s, you know, when you have a player that’s got that’s really good player, yeah, it’s going to change some things.”

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What are you seeing from the offensive line, really, as a whole, in spring practice?

“Yeah, I think guys have done a good job. And Coach (Lonnie) Teasley has done a really good job kind of moving guys around to allow them to get maybe more reps. We’ve moved guys from tackle to play some guard, and then back out to tackle, from center to guard, back to center, things like that. And I think all of them, you know, our biggest goal is, yes, to identify guys of who we want to move forward with, so to speak. But there’s open competition, probably more so there than or just as much there as the other positions on offense.

“So between getting guys as many reps as we can and then also finding out if, if certain guys can, ‘Okay. This guy can play left tackle, but he can also play left guard if we need to.’ I mean, you’re always thinking about certain alignments with guys, or starting line, so to speak, and how flexible you could be during the course of the season, if guys get hurt or whatever, you need to make a change.

“So that being said, there’s been really good competition, and the guys that we brought in have done a really good job of understanding how we do things here, taking on a leadership role in their own ways. Not trying to be someone they’re not, not trying to be a big shot, anything like that, but just putting forth the hard work and being really good communicators. And then the young guys, I think, have done a good job of kind of following those older guys and then also starting to make a name for themselves. Kind of show out a little bit in their performance over the course of the last three weeks.”

This deep into spring, how has Sellers meshed with the new receivers? Will you use Friday as a sort of checkpoint to see what that chemistry is?

“Maybe not as a checkpoint, just as maybe another reference point of just continuing to get those guys reps together. We’re not there yet with all the guys that are going to be playing with timing, with those guys and LaNorris. But we don’t need to be there yet. So it’ll be a good, another good example or showing for those guys to go out there and prove that they can be ready when the time comes.

“But we’ll evaluate all this at the end of the offseason, just like we evaluated after the last couple scrimmages and practices. Guys are getting better, and they’re playing. And we’ve got a lot of young guys that are bright-eyed and want to do well, want to be on the field. They’re very conscientious of knowing what to do, because they know they can’t play if they don’t do it, and they understand that. And that’s also pushed the older guys, and we’ve seen a lot of good things from our older guys that have been here too.”

How has the recruiting side of things been for you as you’re now more involved in that way as an OC?

“Actually, it’s been very refreshing. Our guys communicate well. They get along well at all the positions. They know they’re competing, yes, on paper, against each other, but they’re also competing with each other. There’s good friendships. And I think some of these younger guys come in, when they come in and have a chance to visit us, they see that, they see that culture. They see that relationship that guys have when they’re competing for jobs. But they also have a good relationship. And so having a chance when the guys come on campus of saying hello to them and their families and getting to know more about them, it’s been refreshing.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been back in college football. Like I said in the past, I’ve been lucky enough to be in the NFL for a long time. You kind of get the finished product in the NFL, and they’re going like, our seniors are out there now, they’re ready to roll. Now they’re going to be rookies. But still, you get that they’ve been through four or five years of college football. Now you see these guys when they’re when you’re recruiting them, and they’re 16, 17, 18 years old, and they’re at the forefront of that. So they’re bright-eyed, and you can kind of see what they’re about and learn more about them each time they come on campus and get to know them and their families. And it’s been good, that’s been refreshing. And looking forward to continuing to gather as much information about guys and bringing the right guys in here, like Coach Beamer talks about.”

When we were talking to Shawn Elliott last week, one of the things that he said was that you’re pretty receptive to ideas and suggestions in the offensive coaches’ room. Now, some head coaches, some coordinators, aren’t that way. Is that something that you evolved into over the years? Or have you always been that way?

“Well, I’ve been lucky. I mean, just to be around a lot of good coaches and hopefully, I’ve been able to, number one, learn from all those guys that I’ve been around. I’m a product of a lot of the guys that have been around, and part of that has been, yes, listening to other ideas, being open. You have to have a conviction when you’re, in my opinion, when you’re a coordinator of what you want to get done. You have to have a vision, but you also have to communicate with the coaches, and kind of have them understand that vision, but then also be open to other ideas. Because there’s a lot of it’s a lot of ways to do things, a lot of good ways to do things, and you can’t just think that your way is the only way.

“And we have smart coaches on our staff across the board, and really, we have a wealth of knowledge, and Shawn is a big part of that, and Lonnie and Greg Adkins and Mike Furrey and Coach (Marquel) Blackwell. We have a lot of guys that have coached and have experience and can bring things to the table that maybe you haven’t thought of that or might be doing the same thing. Just a different way to do it. So, yeah, we do that, and then at the end of the day, you know, just say, hey, at some point we got to make a decision on this, how we do it. It might not be the way what you’re used to, but hey, let’s talk about it. And that way everyone feels like, ‘Okay, this is okay. I like this.’ But yeah, okay, well, I’ll do it that way. It’s better, and then we move forward.”

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