Gamecocks coordinators talk Spencer Rattler's influence and development
Marcus Satterfield joked Thursday Spencer Rattler was more or less just “playing football” during the Gamecocks’ spring practice.
The transfer was still trying to get his bearings in a new offense, but now Satterfield raves about the Gamecocks’ quarterback and his progression from then until now.
“He was just kind of playing football in the spring and trying to learn. In the summer he did a really nice job of learning the offense,” Satterfield said. “Through camp he came out on fire, very accurate passer, again we’re challenging to get the ball even faster.”
Rattler is now almost nine months into the offense and just wrapped his first scrimmage of preseason practice.
It wasn’t perfect my any stretch, but Satterfield’s seen progression even in the four practices since then.
“The cool thing to me is where Spencer was Saturday in the scrimmage to where he is now is like 100 times better,” he said.
The ability to learn from mistakes is going to be a crucial trait to have during the grueling SEC schedule. Rattler’s talent has always been evident within the building. And Satterfield is looking to make the already talented quarterback even better.
“Spencer’s really really good, like really really good, so we’re trying to make him even better by getting that thing out on time,” Satterfield said.
Rattler is also starting to give his own defensive coordinator a challenge.
“I do believe that he was a guy who got used to the defense,” Clayton White said. “I could tell by about day four and I told my guys, ‘Okay I have to start lying to him a bit more on defense.”
The defense has also been holding its own. But when one guy can raise the level of competition as much as Rattler has, it pays dividends on both sides of the ball.
“He’s making us a defensive staff and football players to understand that,” White said. “When you’re going against a guy at that rate, you have to be savvy and deceptive,” White said.
Rattler is a former five-star quarterback who started his career at Oklahoma. There, he played in 23 games where he completed 70.1 percent of his passes and averaged 8.9 yards per attempt. He tossed 40 touchdowns to 12 interceptions. His best year came in 2020 where he had a 67.5 percent completion rate and averaged 9.6 yards per attempt with 28 touchdowns to seven picks.
