South Carolina looking to be more 'explosive' on offense heading into Kentucky
South Carolina may have done enough to win its season opener against Old Dominion this past Saturday. But that doesn’t mean it was a great performance.
For much of the game, it was the defense stealing the show with four turnovers. Had it not been for some big plays by the defense, the Gamecocks may not have been victorious.
On offense, it was tough to get things going. The two drives that resulted in touchdowns both started inside the 10-yard line. The run game was a strong point, rushing for 174 yards and two scores, although it came on 56 carries. But the main concern was the passing game.
“If I was critiquing us as an offense, we weren’t explosive enough in the passing game,” offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains said. “I mean, we had seven explosive total, five of those were in the running game and only two in the passing game. So for us to continue to get better, that’s where our Improvement is going to have to go from week one to week two, week two to three, is we have to be more explosive in the passing game. That’s how you score points.”
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In LaNorris Sellers’ first career start at quarterback, the redshirt freshman went 10-for-23 for 114 yards through the air. The longest pass was a throw to Vandrevius Jacobs, who had some space and turned it into a 41-yard gain. Other than that, Sellers and his receivers struggled to build a consistent connection.
Because of this, there was a heavy reliance on running the football. More than 70 percent of the offensive plays ended up being runs, whether they were handoffs or Sellers taking off. The passing woes became more prevalent in the red zone when South Carolina became run-first.
In the three drives that ended with field goals, the Gamecocks ran the ball eight times inside the red zone. Sellers only threw one pass and took two sacks in the process. This inconsistency to throw the ball caused a lot of good drives to end with only three points.
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“I think our run game got a little leaky at times down there,” Loggains said. “… The most important thing in the red area is go first down, second down, first down. When you get in these 3rd and 8 on the 12, 3rd and 8 on the 23, you’re going to settle for field goals right there. Obviously, Alex (Herrera) came in and bailed us out with some of these field goals. But all of a sudden, you score in the red area and the feel of the game’s a little bit different, as well.”
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Even when South Carolina had a chance to melt the clock in the fourth quarter, there was hesitancy to pass. On the last drive, the offense ran three run plays and gave Old Dominion the ball back with just under three minutes to go.
Fortunately, the defense managed to seal the game with a Jalon Kilgore interception a few plays later. But the way in which the offense operates is something Loggains expects to be different next time out.
“You’re not going to go play every game that way. There’s times where you have to say, ‘Hey, call your three best plays’ and two of the three might be passes. It might be three passes in a row,” he said. “We need to finish that drive with the ball and earn three runs and get a first down or two runs and throw a pass there. We still have an opportunity to finish that game with the ball in our hands and that’s really the goal in that situation.”
