W
Wes Mitchell
Guest
Some thoughts on South Carolina's 26-19 victory over Michigan...
** Michigan may have had the best defense South Carolina faced and their front was dominant throughout most of the contest. Certainly the Carolina offense sputtered for much of the game, but you could see their thought process playing out with the quick passing game and wide receiver screens to try and slow the rush, but even that didn't seem to work early on as Michigan was able to get into the backfield to bat passes down. Some early miscues, missed blocking assignments, the fumble, hurt Carolina from having any success early on too.
** You can tell that McClendon wanted to spread the Wolverines out and try to identify good matchups against their predominantly man coverage defensive scheme. That's one change within the offense that I noticed, there was very little two-tight end stuff until the very end when they were trying to run out the clock or in short yardage. Most of the day, Carolina was in three-wides and a lot of time Hurst was split out wide too. I thought you could sort of see glimpses of what McClendon wants to do, within the framework of the scheme that was already in place, but he was widely pigeonholed within that window and will have a lot more freedom to change things up this offseason if/when his hiring is made official. Simply taking what the defense gives on the outside with those easy throws to wide receivers will probably be a big part of it.
** Once Carolina finally had a little momentum going, the offense had a new energy about it and was able to block Michigan's front just enough. The Wolverines didn't sub much along their front four and I think Carolina was able to wear them down a little bit in the second half. The turnovers were obviously huge in the game, but drives of 81 and 77 yards by the offense against that defense in the second half should be mentioned as well.
If you look back, there was decent enough production on first downs in the game. There were several plays early on that put Carolina in good position on second and third down. But several third down passes were batted and the Gamecocks weren't able to run the football in short yardage at all.
McClendon made some nice adjustments though especially in finding a way to get Rico Dowdle the ball on the edges where he could make plays with space. The linebacker, No. 9 for Michigan, was in man coverage on the running back almost all game and Carolina picked on him a bit in the fourth quarter. One of McClendon's best calls of the game came on the 3rd and 1 at the beginning of the 4th when Hayden Hurst picked 9, who was again in coverage and allowed for an easy completion to Dowdle for a big gain. Carolina had a nice gain on a running back screen to Dowdle too where it similarly blocked 9.
The speed option is one of my favorite plays in football and Carolina ran it to perfection as Bentley optioned off the end and Zack Bailey put a great block on 9. Dowdle was a difference maker in the game in my opinion.
Going back to first downs, many of Carolina's shot plays, or deep balls, were on first downs too. The early deep ball to Bryan Edwards that hit was a first down call. The touchdown pass to Shi Smith was a first down and I loved the go-for-the-dagger style call to Edwards for the TD immediately following the turnover. Bentley looked as comfortable on his deep passes as he has all season.
** Enough talk about the offense, because there were some really ugly moments at times -- kudos to the Carolina defense for keeping them in the game throughout. This defense has a certain confidence about themselves that they just keep playing even when things aren't looking good. Carolina's defensive front played the run extremely well throughout the game and allowed the linebackers and defensive backs to rally to the football. There were a few occasions, but rarely did you see the defenders having to make a tackle alone.
Travaris Robinson had some great calls on third downs to free up rushers to the quarterback and other than a couple of plays the secondary had great coverage down the field against Michigan's receivers where the Gamecocks played a lot of man coverage too.
There were plenty of candidates, but Daniel Fennell may have been my defensive player of the game. Against Michigan's heavy-formation oriented offense, Carolina needed a third linebacker to step up and Fennell made plays all over the field. Jamarcus King got credit in the stat sheet for that interception in the end zone, but it was Fennell's pressure that made the play happen. Chris Lammons is another player who was all over the field all game long.
I will have more in my Tale of the Tape that will run before the week is over, but this was a huge win for the program that allows them to go into the offseason with some momentum and plenty to look forward to in the future.
Coaching notes
In addition to our notes from earlier about the offensive coordinator position, I'm told that South Carolina is continuing to work on new contracts for additional assistant coaches and head coach Will Muschamp.
Defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson has been a hot commodity in the coaching community with overtures from both Florida State and Texas A&M. I expect for Robinson's new contract at South Carolina to put him into the $ million-plus per year coordinator club as his efforts will be rewarded and he's a major part of the plan at South Carolina.
Additionally, I'd expect for Muschamp's contract to extend to a five-year deal and for him to receive a solid bump towards the $4 million per year range, along with increased incentives. Muschamp's initial contract was also a five-year deal starting at $3 million per year with $100,000 increases each season.
To reiterate what Chris posted earlier, we continue to hear that Muschamp is leaning towards making Bryan McClendon the Gamecocks' full-time offensive coordinator. While it's been difficult to sort through at times, the more information we've gotten since that post, has only served to further confirm that as the most likely scenario. I would call him a heavy frontrunner for the job.
Also to reiterate, two names I continue to hear for positions on staff are Larry Scott and Kyle Krantz. We are also keeping an eye on Dan Werner and Des Kitchings, but I haven't heard as much concrete information there.
**********
Today’s Carolina Confidential is brought to you by Herring Insurance Services. Call, email, or PM Gamecock Central member Brent Herring today to discuss your home and auto insurance needs.
Located in Lexington but serving all of the Carolinas
803-356-0763
Brent@BrentHerring.com
@BHerring06
