South Carolina players weigh in on Dowell Loggains first game, offense as a whole
Throughout the summer and fall camp, it was all but a mystery what a Dowell Loggains offense would look like. And Saturday was the first time Loggains and the offense got to see what it looked like in a game situation.
In a 31-17 loss to North Carolina, Loggains had his first chance to call plays for the Gamecocks. There were some bright spots but there were also some head-scratching moments.
But overall, the players running the show felt good about his play calling.
“Oh, man, he called all the right plays for every defense,” Xavier Legette said. “We just got to execute on them.”
[Win a Spencer Rattler-autographed football]
In the early stages of the game, South Carolina was able to move the football and score points thanks to some explosive plays. But when those plays weren’t there, the offense did bog down.
“We still had a lot of explosive plays but we could’ve had more,” Rattler said.
But things eventually went into a rut. The Tar Heels, led by Drake Maye, scored 21 unanswered points to take a commanding lead. By the middle of the third quarter, it was a 31-14 ballgame.
It was more than having trouble slowing down Maye, though. In fact, the defense picked him off twice in the second half, and special teams recovered an onside kick.
Despite some of those struggles, South Carolina liked how the offense operated from a playcalling and signaling perspective.
“We got stuff to clean up, but the numbers were there. I know it might sound bad, but it’s real. We had zero turnovers,” Rattler said. “That’s a positive thing. So we’re not over here saying, ‘Hey, we turned the ball over four or five times. We know what we have to get better at and we will.”
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The Gamecocks only managed to score three points off turnovers. They were still moving the ball well and getting into the red zone, only to come up short. They finished with 3.4 points per trip in the red zone, while UNC averaged six points.
When it came to third down plays, South Carolina wasn’t great, going 4-for-14. On fourth down, it went 0-for-4.
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“We’ll clean up a few things, but offensively, I thought we played a solid game,” Rattler said. “We just have to finish in the red zone.”
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Despite being sacked nine times, Rattler did what he could to make it a game. He finished 30-for-39 with 353 yards, good enough to win usually. But while the passing was efficient, the run game was virtually nonexistent.
“We always wish we could be able to run the ball, but we got to do that at a higher level for sure,” Rattler said.
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If there’s any silver lining, there’s still a lot of season left to play. It would’ve been tough for the offense to be perfect after one game. But now, South Carolina will go back to the drawing board and fix what went wrong.
Still, there doesn’t seem to be much of a concern yet. The offense believes everything will work out. But the problems will need to be solved soon with the schedule only getting tougher from here.
“I don’t feel like anything needs to change, man,” Legette said. We just got to execute on everything the boys put on it,”
