Gamecocks utilizing Oklahoma-style offensive concepts to keep Rattler comfortable

Any college football team needs its quarterback to be comfortable to be successful. 

Both Shane Beamer and Marcus Satterfield have stressed this week that they want Spencer Rattler to be his most comfortable self when he lines up under center for the Gamecocks. 

Through three games this season Rattler is averaging 7.1 yards per attempt, 240.3 yards per game, and a completion percentage of 59.4. All but his total yards per game are at or near the bottom among qualifying SEC quarterbacks.

While his numbers aren’t exactly top-tier so far, Satterfield said he is excited for the remainder of Rattler’s season because of the way he’s handled the mistakes he’s made.

“He hasn’t played a lot of layup games, per se, he’s played three really talented defenses and the last two, one on the road, and then this Georgia bunch – I mean that’s about as good as you can get,” Satterfield said. “The way he played, and handled himself, and kept his head, and never lost his mind, I think it’s a sign of good things to come.”

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One way that the offensive staff has attempted to keep Rattler comfortable is by applying some offensive schemes from Oklahoma to the South Carolina playbook. 

Beamer stressed this isn’t out of the ordinary, especially since he came from Oklahoma, and added that it’s a healthy balance of catering to Rattler while doing what is best for the offense as a whole. 

“There are things that he’s comfortable with that there’s great communication between (Satterfield) and Spencer,” Beamer said. “This isn’t, ‘OK, we’re going to do everything Spencer wants and marry our offense all of a sudden to what Spencer is comfortable with.’ We got an entire offense to worry about. But certainly, you want your quarterback comfortable.”

Satterfield doubled down on this, joking that a few play calls he made came straight out of Oklahoma’s playbook from last year. 

“We’ve got a lot of passing game stuff that (Rattler) has done in our offense,” Satterfield said. “If you look at one of the third down plays we ran a couple times last week that was straight out of Lincoln Riley’s playbook. We’re gonna do whatever it takes to get him comfortable and get our guys open and get our guys running in space.”

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The infamous fourth-and-nine play call that was made against Georgia last week is another example of the translation in playbooks. Beamer joked that he’d have to change the play call, aptly named “Sooner,” after calling it out in the press conference, but pointed out that several plays from last year also had Oklahoma-themed names. 

“We have different plays that we brought from Oklahoma, but I think with Spencer coming in, we’ve continued those and some of those he got here and really didn’t like,” Beamer said.

Beamer said the playbook has a little bit more Oklahoma-styled plays this season than last year but said it isn’t a “wholesale change.” 

Making the quarterback comfortable doesn’t just pertain to Rattler though. Beamer said the same applied to Jason Brown last year and does this year for Luke Doty or any Gamecock quarterback that trots out onto the field. 

“I would say that’s any quarterback out there you want them to be comfortable with what they’re being asked to do in the game plan,” Beamer said. “With the quarterbacks last year and then Spencer this year, look if there’s something you don’t really love and don’t quite understand, don’t think it fits us, whatever, communicate it, let’s get that out of the game plan.”

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