It should come as no surprise that South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, in his Sunday teleconference with reporters, did not sound happy in the least with his team’s offensive performance in Thursday night’s 17-13 season opening win at Vanderbilt.
The Gamecocks’ 67 passing yards were their fewest of his tenure in Columbia, which began in 2005. Their 15 passing attempts were the second-fewest. USC totaled 272 yards. Here is where that ranks among its fewest yards since the beginning of 2007 ...
173 – Florida, 2008 ... L
205 – Connecticut, 2009 ... L
207 – Arkansas, 2011 ... L
247 – Florida, 2009 ... L
254 – LSU, 2008 ... L
255 – Tennessee, 2008 ... W
256 – North Carolina State, 2009 ... W
261 – LSU, 2007 ... L
272 – Vanderbilt, 2012 ... W
As you can see, USC is 3-6 in those aforementioned games, so Spurrier knows the Gamecocks were “extremely fortunate,” as he said, to get out of Nashville with a 1-0 record.
“We didn’t play extremely well overall, but our guys did put a drive together and get a touchdown in the fourth quarter,” he said. “Hopefully we can improve in a lot of areas. Obviously, our passing game was not good at all. Sometimes, the quarterback (Connor Shaw) maybe took off running when he could’ve stayed in the pocket, and a lot of times he didn’t have time to stay in there and throw. It was a combination of everything. Mainly as coaches, we’ve got a figure out a way to protect our passer and get the ball thrown on rhythm and get some guys open and see if we can become a decent passing team.”
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Here’s the latest on Shaw, who bruised his right (throwing) shoulder at Vanderbilt ...
“Connor’s condition is wait and see,” Spurrier said. “We’ll see how he is probably Wednesday or so, if he’ll practice any before then.”
USC practiced Saturday and will return to practice Monday. Shaw did not practice Saturday and won’t practice Monday, Spurrier said.
“He got sort of a deep bruise on the bone on the back of the shoulder there,” Spurrier said. “It’s not in the joint. It’s just painful for him. He has trouble lifting his arm right now. It’s pretty hard to play quarterback at the condition he’s in right now. They say it may loosen up probably in three or four days, so we’ll wait and see about that. If he’s hurt, we’ll get Dylan (Thompson) or Seth (Strickland) or Andrew Clifford ready. Dylan is probably first in line. After that, we’ll see.
“If he’s not healthy, we’re not going to play him. We’re going to struggle against East Carolina the way it is. It’s going to be a tight ballgame, like just about all of our games are going to be, I think.
“(Shaw playing) depends on if he can throw the ball and he’s not in pain. We’ll know more about him come Wednesday. I think Dylan is probably ahead of the other guys a little bit. Seth Strickland is a good, reliable player also. We have confidence that Seth can take care of the ball and hand it off. (True freshman) Brendan Nosovitch, he’s probably a year or two away. He hasn’t had hardly any snaps (in practice). I don’t see him getting ready to play.”
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Spurrier mentioned that he did try to call pass plays, but USC’s issues with that area of its game were multifold.
“I don’t have all the answers for you,” he said. “Sometimes, we had time to throw and we took off running. Sometimes we didn’t have time to throw and we took off running. We must have called 30 of them (pass plays). Nothing much good was happening when we called a pass. Sometimes, we did have some bad plays called. Sometimes Vandy had us covered and we had to go. The interception (thrown by Shaw), the ball was a little behind. Maybe (Shaw) could have thrown a little earlier to the one with Bruce (Ellington) in the end zone.
“Mainly as coaches, we’ve got to get some rhythm with the quarterback taking his steps and letting it go. It seems like every play was a scramble play, which I don’t like particularly. We do have a quarterback that can run. If you’ve got a quarterback that can run, he’s going to take off running a bunch, I guess. Connor’s been pretty good in preseason about letting it go. Maybe he reverted back a little bit to scrambling because he is such a good runner with the ball.”
That’s been the primary storyline with Shaw – walking the fine line about when to stay in the pocket and when to take off. As Spurrier mentioned, the coaches thought Shaw had made some significant progress with staying in the pocket longer and keeping his eyes downfield, but those issues came up again on Thursday.
The bottom line is, Shaw is generously listed at 6-1. He is 207 pounds. He is not Cam Newton. He runs very well. But he ran 13 times at Vanderbilt, not counting his lone sack, which is a lot of open-field vulnerability for a guy his size. And now, one game into the season, he is bruised and sore and his status for the second game is in question, though Shaw said after the Vanderbilt game that “absolutely” expects to play this weekend against East Carolina at home.
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As usual, Spurrier called plays the entire game. There were no Wildcat plays or plays that got the ball into the hands of Ellington, who did not have a catch or a rush, but was thrown to in the end zone that one time, as Spurrier mentioned.
“You didn’t see much of anything, did you?” Spurrier said. “Hopefully our offense can show a little bit more different plays. We didn’t do much of anything. It was an ugly offensive game. Fortunately, Marcus had some runs and Connor had some runs and we were able to somehow get 17 (points) out of it and somehow won the game. The offense was not real exciting to watch. It wasn’t a pretty offense. That’s for sure.”
He said receivers getting separation wasn’t an issue.
“Not really,” Spurrier said. “We didn’t get enough balls out. We called some passes and actually checked out of a few. It looked like a very conservative offense that didn’t have many ball plays to make a big gain or anything. As coaches, we’ve got to try to fix it. So we’ll work on pass protection, we’ll work on the quarterback taking his steps and letting it go. We’ll do all that kind of stuff this week to see if it’ll help.”
In terms of long plays, Shaw had a 20-yard run and a 20-yard pass. And Lattimore had a 29-yard run. All told, USC had four plays (one pass, three rushes) that covered 20-plus yards. Four out of 62 total plays. The Gamecocks had two passes of 10-plus yards and eight such runs. So just 10 of their 62 plays gained even 10-plus yards.
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Some other odds and ends from Spurrier’s teleconference ...
** Linebacker Shaq Wilson (tied for a team-best eight tackles, half a tackle for loss and a huge pick in the red zone) “had a tremendous game,” Spurrier said.
** Special teams left much to be desired by Spurrier.
“Overall, as a team, we did not play very well,” Spurrier said. “Our special teams did nothing to help out. The punt teams, we lost about 100 yards, I think, in exchanges. They almost ran (a kickoff) almost all the way back (52 yards). We’ve got to get better in that area, too.”
** Tyler Hull handled all six punts and will be USC’s punter. An “OR” was on the depth chart between him and Patrick Fish, and the competition continued in the days before the opener.
“I would imagine that we’re going to stick with Tyler,” Spurrier said. “He caught the ball and got it out of there. A little disappointed that we had two punts go into the end zone. Our last punt was a net (of) 20 yards. We were on their 40 and punted the dang thing in the end zone, which is not real smart. So hopefully we can kick the ball up in the air and let the guy fair catch it at the 10-yard line. We weren’t capable of doing that the two times we punted right around midfield there. But he’s a good punter. We think we’ll be fine.”
** Redshirt freshman left tackle Brandon Shell was spotty in his debut, which is to be expected. Playing left tackle as a freshman of any stripe in the SEC is a challenge. Moreover, Shell had a tough luck injury in practice last week that limited him. He was limping badly after the game, but should be OK for ECU.
“Brandon sprained his ankle a little bit in practice on Wednesday, I think it was,” Spurrier said. “We held him out a while and he was able to play. He had his ankle back in that little boot they put him in yesterday. I think he’ll be held out another couple days this week. He’ll be able to play (against East Carolina). But it was just frustrating.
“He did OK. He gave up that one sack (USC allowed three total). That can happen, I guess. Our whole o-line has got to play a little bit better. We turned some guys loose. Hopefully, it’s not going to happen as often as the other day.”
** Tailback Marcus Lattimore came out of the game feeling good about his surgically repaired left knee.
“He was fine and he had a sensational game, obviously,” Spurrier said. “I had a friend of mine say he didn’t look like his old self. I said, ‘If you had about two defensive guys and an offensive lineman standing there waiting on you, there’s nowhere to run.’ When there was a little bit to run, he made yards. He had some outstanding runs. We had some decent blocks.
“The fumble (on Lattimore’s first carry), they had two guys waiting on him and Brandon (Shell), he sort of at the last moment tried to block the guys and Marcus had three guys running right at him and he was four yards behind the line of scrimmage. Hopefully, we can block a little bit better than that next time. (Doctors now) can bring them back as strong as before and maybe even stronger (after knee injuries). He’s ready to go.”
Even with the success of Lattimore and the defense, Spurrier doesn’t want to rely on those two factors alone to win games.
“I hope not,” he said. “I hope we can get into a ballgame that we have some confidence that we can get some passes and get them off and throw them where we’re supposed to. It didn’t happen the last time we played. We’ve got to hope to see if it can happen this Saturday.”
link: http://www.postandco...mentId=blogDest
The Gamecocks’ 67 passing yards were their fewest of his tenure in Columbia, which began in 2005. Their 15 passing attempts were the second-fewest. USC totaled 272 yards. Here is where that ranks among its fewest yards since the beginning of 2007 ...
173 – Florida, 2008 ... L
205 – Connecticut, 2009 ... L
207 – Arkansas, 2011 ... L
247 – Florida, 2009 ... L
254 – LSU, 2008 ... L
255 – Tennessee, 2008 ... W
256 – North Carolina State, 2009 ... W
261 – LSU, 2007 ... L
272 – Vanderbilt, 2012 ... W
As you can see, USC is 3-6 in those aforementioned games, so Spurrier knows the Gamecocks were “extremely fortunate,” as he said, to get out of Nashville with a 1-0 record.
“We didn’t play extremely well overall, but our guys did put a drive together and get a touchdown in the fourth quarter,” he said. “Hopefully we can improve in a lot of areas. Obviously, our passing game was not good at all. Sometimes, the quarterback (Connor Shaw) maybe took off running when he could’ve stayed in the pocket, and a lot of times he didn’t have time to stay in there and throw. It was a combination of everything. Mainly as coaches, we’ve got a figure out a way to protect our passer and get the ball thrown on rhythm and get some guys open and see if we can become a decent passing team.”
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Here’s the latest on Shaw, who bruised his right (throwing) shoulder at Vanderbilt ...
“Connor’s condition is wait and see,” Spurrier said. “We’ll see how he is probably Wednesday or so, if he’ll practice any before then.”
USC practiced Saturday and will return to practice Monday. Shaw did not practice Saturday and won’t practice Monday, Spurrier said.
“He got sort of a deep bruise on the bone on the back of the shoulder there,” Spurrier said. “It’s not in the joint. It’s just painful for him. He has trouble lifting his arm right now. It’s pretty hard to play quarterback at the condition he’s in right now. They say it may loosen up probably in three or four days, so we’ll wait and see about that. If he’s hurt, we’ll get Dylan (Thompson) or Seth (Strickland) or Andrew Clifford ready. Dylan is probably first in line. After that, we’ll see.
“If he’s not healthy, we’re not going to play him. We’re going to struggle against East Carolina the way it is. It’s going to be a tight ballgame, like just about all of our games are going to be, I think.
“(Shaw playing) depends on if he can throw the ball and he’s not in pain. We’ll know more about him come Wednesday. I think Dylan is probably ahead of the other guys a little bit. Seth Strickland is a good, reliable player also. We have confidence that Seth can take care of the ball and hand it off. (True freshman) Brendan Nosovitch, he’s probably a year or two away. He hasn’t had hardly any snaps (in practice). I don’t see him getting ready to play.”
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Spurrier mentioned that he did try to call pass plays, but USC’s issues with that area of its game were multifold.
“I don’t have all the answers for you,” he said. “Sometimes, we had time to throw and we took off running. Sometimes we didn’t have time to throw and we took off running. We must have called 30 of them (pass plays). Nothing much good was happening when we called a pass. Sometimes, we did have some bad plays called. Sometimes Vandy had us covered and we had to go. The interception (thrown by Shaw), the ball was a little behind. Maybe (Shaw) could have thrown a little earlier to the one with Bruce (Ellington) in the end zone.
“Mainly as coaches, we’ve got to get some rhythm with the quarterback taking his steps and letting it go. It seems like every play was a scramble play, which I don’t like particularly. We do have a quarterback that can run. If you’ve got a quarterback that can run, he’s going to take off running a bunch, I guess. Connor’s been pretty good in preseason about letting it go. Maybe he reverted back a little bit to scrambling because he is such a good runner with the ball.”
That’s been the primary storyline with Shaw – walking the fine line about when to stay in the pocket and when to take off. As Spurrier mentioned, the coaches thought Shaw had made some significant progress with staying in the pocket longer and keeping his eyes downfield, but those issues came up again on Thursday.
The bottom line is, Shaw is generously listed at 6-1. He is 207 pounds. He is not Cam Newton. He runs very well. But he ran 13 times at Vanderbilt, not counting his lone sack, which is a lot of open-field vulnerability for a guy his size. And now, one game into the season, he is bruised and sore and his status for the second game is in question, though Shaw said after the Vanderbilt game that “absolutely” expects to play this weekend against East Carolina at home.
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As usual, Spurrier called plays the entire game. There were no Wildcat plays or plays that got the ball into the hands of Ellington, who did not have a catch or a rush, but was thrown to in the end zone that one time, as Spurrier mentioned.
“You didn’t see much of anything, did you?” Spurrier said. “Hopefully our offense can show a little bit more different plays. We didn’t do much of anything. It was an ugly offensive game. Fortunately, Marcus had some runs and Connor had some runs and we were able to somehow get 17 (points) out of it and somehow won the game. The offense was not real exciting to watch. It wasn’t a pretty offense. That’s for sure.”
He said receivers getting separation wasn’t an issue.
“Not really,” Spurrier said. “We didn’t get enough balls out. We called some passes and actually checked out of a few. It looked like a very conservative offense that didn’t have many ball plays to make a big gain or anything. As coaches, we’ve got to try to fix it. So we’ll work on pass protection, we’ll work on the quarterback taking his steps and letting it go. We’ll do all that kind of stuff this week to see if it’ll help.”
In terms of long plays, Shaw had a 20-yard run and a 20-yard pass. And Lattimore had a 29-yard run. All told, USC had four plays (one pass, three rushes) that covered 20-plus yards. Four out of 62 total plays. The Gamecocks had two passes of 10-plus yards and eight such runs. So just 10 of their 62 plays gained even 10-plus yards.
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Some other odds and ends from Spurrier’s teleconference ...
** Linebacker Shaq Wilson (tied for a team-best eight tackles, half a tackle for loss and a huge pick in the red zone) “had a tremendous game,” Spurrier said.
** Special teams left much to be desired by Spurrier.
“Overall, as a team, we did not play very well,” Spurrier said. “Our special teams did nothing to help out. The punt teams, we lost about 100 yards, I think, in exchanges. They almost ran (a kickoff) almost all the way back (52 yards). We’ve got to get better in that area, too.”
** Tyler Hull handled all six punts and will be USC’s punter. An “OR” was on the depth chart between him and Patrick Fish, and the competition continued in the days before the opener.
“I would imagine that we’re going to stick with Tyler,” Spurrier said. “He caught the ball and got it out of there. A little disappointed that we had two punts go into the end zone. Our last punt was a net (of) 20 yards. We were on their 40 and punted the dang thing in the end zone, which is not real smart. So hopefully we can kick the ball up in the air and let the guy fair catch it at the 10-yard line. We weren’t capable of doing that the two times we punted right around midfield there. But he’s a good punter. We think we’ll be fine.”
** Redshirt freshman left tackle Brandon Shell was spotty in his debut, which is to be expected. Playing left tackle as a freshman of any stripe in the SEC is a challenge. Moreover, Shell had a tough luck injury in practice last week that limited him. He was limping badly after the game, but should be OK for ECU.
“Brandon sprained his ankle a little bit in practice on Wednesday, I think it was,” Spurrier said. “We held him out a while and he was able to play. He had his ankle back in that little boot they put him in yesterday. I think he’ll be held out another couple days this week. He’ll be able to play (against East Carolina). But it was just frustrating.
“He did OK. He gave up that one sack (USC allowed three total). That can happen, I guess. Our whole o-line has got to play a little bit better. We turned some guys loose. Hopefully, it’s not going to happen as often as the other day.”
** Tailback Marcus Lattimore came out of the game feeling good about his surgically repaired left knee.
“He was fine and he had a sensational game, obviously,” Spurrier said. “I had a friend of mine say he didn’t look like his old self. I said, ‘If you had about two defensive guys and an offensive lineman standing there waiting on you, there’s nowhere to run.’ When there was a little bit to run, he made yards. He had some outstanding runs. We had some decent blocks.
“The fumble (on Lattimore’s first carry), they had two guys waiting on him and Brandon (Shell), he sort of at the last moment tried to block the guys and Marcus had three guys running right at him and he was four yards behind the line of scrimmage. Hopefully, we can block a little bit better than that next time. (Doctors now) can bring them back as strong as before and maybe even stronger (after knee injuries). He’s ready to go.”
Even with the success of Lattimore and the defense, Spurrier doesn’t want to rely on those two factors alone to win games.
“I hope not,” he said. “I hope we can get into a ballgame that we have some confidence that we can get some passes and get them off and throw them where we’re supposed to. It didn’t happen the last time we played. We’ve got to hope to see if it can happen this Saturday.”
link: http://www.postandco...mentId=blogDest
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