COLUMBIA — A good time was had, even for those complaining online about the play-calling … in a spring game. Nobody was hurt, everybody ooohed at the post-game fireworks and South Carolina bounced into the offseason on a good note.
“It’s been a great spring for us, certainly feel like we’ve gotten better, and that’s what I just told the team in there. We’ve gotten better as a team since January and since practice one of the spring,” coach Shane Beamer said. “There’s no question we’ve made a lot of improvements; got a lot of work to do but we’ve gotten better.”
It was a spring game. No observation should be chiseled into stone, because if one piece of the team looked good, it meant the one directly across from it didn’t. Plus, no coach is ever going to display anything but the basics (OK, USC summoned one trick play, featuring two defensive backs carrying, passing and trying to catch a touchdown pass) in a meaningless scrimmage.
Yet there were some points that stood out.
QB1
Beamer wasn’t going to say it. The transfer portal is still open, and the Gamecocks need Robby Ashford as experienced backup. And they always want to stoke that fire of “competition.”
But formal declaration or not, LaNorris Sellers is USC’s quarterback going forward. Even in a spring game, the gap between the two was obvious.
There’s some learning to be had (he’s a redshirt freshman who’s thrown four career passes). But his instincts are sound. He knows exactly when to use his legs to make a nothing play into something.
Whereas Spencer Rattler, who was mobile, would stay with the play to try and make it work, running at the last second to pick up 4 yards, Sellers makes a faster decision to run and turns it into a 10-yard play. With USC’s running game in flux and the coaches scouring the transfer portal for a stretch-the-field receiver, the Gamecocks are going to need that kind of headiness.
He’s the guy. Even if neither Beamer nor he are saying it at present.
“I think it’s a competition,” Sellers said. “I just got to really worry about me, do my job.”
Marauders
Led by Bryan Thomas, Monkell Goodwine and Dylan Stewart, USC’s defensive front was constantly in the backfield. It wrecked plays and griped at Beamer for not calling more sacks than he actually did.
Again, it’s the spring. Does that mean USC’s offensive line is as porous as it was last year?
Or is it that the Gamecocks will be that kind of disruptive force that can dictate how a game is going to go, a proactive group instead of the reactive bunch it’s been for so long?
“It showed me what I can do, what I can bring to the fall,” Thomas said. “Really just makes me better, each and every rep.”
Run (don’t walk) hard
DJay Braswell had a splendid day, one of the running backs who didn’t have any negative yards. He knows how to get his head down and bull through coverages for daylight. Oscar Adaway and Jawarn Howell had some moments as well.
Yet … even with the “spring game” caveat …
Many runs to the middle of the field were squashed at the line of scrimmage. There were far too many procedure penalties. Even considering that USC’s best running back (Rocket Sanders) didn’t play, those are factors USC doesn’t want to see after a season when it finished dead last in the league in rushing offense.
Go long … er, short
USC is shopping for receivers; specifically, tall receivers that can jump to get a downfield pass. Dowell Loggains wasn’t going to dial too many vertical passes on Saturday, because what’s the point of showing off too much in a spring game. Also, who did he expect to go get the ball?
The Gamecocks’ receivers at present are short, speedy guys. Their tallest is Nyck Harbor, who didn’t play Saturday. Not having that option isn’t necessarily bad; it only means that USC has to use more crosses, slants and screens to the edge to get the speed it has in open space.
The perimeter blocking, as it needed to last year, has to substantially improve if short passes are going to be the game plan. The Gamecocks have to find at least one, if not two or three, big tall guys that can catch a 20-yard pass, if nothing else to show they have the threat.
