M
Mike Uva
Guest
Last week’s win against Florida was huge for a plethora of reasons for South Carolina but now it’s time to put it to bed and move forward.
There’s no magic formula that USC can take that will give them the ability to go out to Missouri this weekend and carry that momentum they created in last week’s win, but memes and videos of Josh Vann being more open than Bar None and Night Caps back in the day past 2 am won’t do the trick. Here’s a few things USC needs to do to make sure they continue to take steps forward this weekend.
STAY CORNY:
For as much flak as Marcus Satterfield has took this season, he made a comment on Wednesday that couldn’t have been said any better as to how you keep making progress after last week’s game.
“You have to do corny better than everybody else. We talk about it all the time on offense. Play to the whistle,” said Satterfield. “All those little slogans you see on your coaches’ walls when you’re growing up, the Vince Lombardi quotes that kids think are corny, but are very, very true, we have to do that better than everybody. We have to understand that you didn’t beat Florida because you were lucky or because you wanted to. You beat them because of the work and you did it because of the consistency and the competition.”
ALL STARTS WITH ERIC DOUGLAS:
During the first quarter of last week’s game against Florida, I pointed out how impressed I was with how vocal center Eric Douglas was. That wasn’t to take anything away from what Jason Brown was doing but it was evident that Douglas took it upon himself to lead the offense, especially pre-snap, to help take some of the load off Brown.
On Wednesday, Satterfield echoed those sentiments calling the Florida game Douglas’s best game from a leadership presence and explaining how Douglas was making practically all of the calls at the line of scrimmage.
“Eric's got a brain like an NFL player in the things that he sees,” explained Satterfield, who received high-praise prior to the season from former Gamecock offensive lineman Dennis Daley, who was coached by Satterfield during his time with the Carolina Panthers.
I’ve said it before, X’s and O’s wise, when the coaches say the scheme isn’t complicated they could be right, and rather the complexity has lied in communication pre-snap, from relaying the plays down to the field to what the offense needs to do pre-snap on the field. If USC is able to to have the same amount of success against Mizzou, keep an eye on Douglas pre-snap early on because he very likely will be a big reason why.
MORE PASSING THREATS WILL HELP THE RUN GAME
I said this last week but feel like it’s even more important this week, despite Mizzou being ranked dead last in FBS in rush defense: USC needs someone else other than Vann stepping up at WR or TE.
With Nick Muse having a solid night against Florida with four receptions for 38, behind Vann leading the way with seven receptions for 111 yards, it helped USC run wild on the Gators for 284 yards.
Like we saw with Shi Smith last year, teams know that if you take Vann out of the game by keeping an extra eye on him, USC will need to throw the ball elsewhere. At some point, maybe this weekend or next, you can’t depend on Vann being open all the time.
As we saw early on in the year, teams were doubling Vann and bringing an extra guy down in the box to stop the run to basically challenge USC by saying, if you want to beat us then you’ll have to do so by throwing it to someone other than Vann.
Whether that be Jaheim Bell, Xavier Legette, EJ Jenkins, or whoever, teams won’t be able to pack the box as much and will keep the defense honest.
BOTTOM LINE:
A week later with an impressive showing against Florida I’ll say it again for those who were ready to call it a season or even the hambones who were ready to write-off Shane Beamer, a first-year head coach who inherited a (2-8) who the year before that only won 4 games… USC is better than they were last year.
They’re better in special teams and defense (although they can still improve but let’s not forget how things were left a year ago) but overall offensively have took steps backwards. That was until last week. Another strong showing offensively, regardless of who the opponent is this week and their struggles to stop the run, will very likely help USC earn their sixth win of the season to become bowl eligible for the for time since 2018.
There’s no magic formula that USC can take that will give them the ability to go out to Missouri this weekend and carry that momentum they created in last week’s win, but memes and videos of Josh Vann being more open than Bar None and Night Caps back in the day past 2 am won’t do the trick. Here’s a few things USC needs to do to make sure they continue to take steps forward this weekend.
STAY CORNY:
For as much flak as Marcus Satterfield has took this season, he made a comment on Wednesday that couldn’t have been said any better as to how you keep making progress after last week’s game.
“You have to do corny better than everybody else. We talk about it all the time on offense. Play to the whistle,” said Satterfield. “All those little slogans you see on your coaches’ walls when you’re growing up, the Vince Lombardi quotes that kids think are corny, but are very, very true, we have to do that better than everybody. We have to understand that you didn’t beat Florida because you were lucky or because you wanted to. You beat them because of the work and you did it because of the consistency and the competition.”
ALL STARTS WITH ERIC DOUGLAS:
During the first quarter of last week’s game against Florida, I pointed out how impressed I was with how vocal center Eric Douglas was. That wasn’t to take anything away from what Jason Brown was doing but it was evident that Douglas took it upon himself to lead the offense, especially pre-snap, to help take some of the load off Brown.
On Wednesday, Satterfield echoed those sentiments calling the Florida game Douglas’s best game from a leadership presence and explaining how Douglas was making practically all of the calls at the line of scrimmage.
“Eric's got a brain like an NFL player in the things that he sees,” explained Satterfield, who received high-praise prior to the season from former Gamecock offensive lineman Dennis Daley, who was coached by Satterfield during his time with the Carolina Panthers.
I’ve said it before, X’s and O’s wise, when the coaches say the scheme isn’t complicated they could be right, and rather the complexity has lied in communication pre-snap, from relaying the plays down to the field to what the offense needs to do pre-snap on the field. If USC is able to to have the same amount of success against Mizzou, keep an eye on Douglas pre-snap early on because he very likely will be a big reason why.
MORE PASSING THREATS WILL HELP THE RUN GAME
I said this last week but feel like it’s even more important this week, despite Mizzou being ranked dead last in FBS in rush defense: USC needs someone else other than Vann stepping up at WR or TE.
With Nick Muse having a solid night against Florida with four receptions for 38, behind Vann leading the way with seven receptions for 111 yards, it helped USC run wild on the Gators for 284 yards.
Like we saw with Shi Smith last year, teams know that if you take Vann out of the game by keeping an extra eye on him, USC will need to throw the ball elsewhere. At some point, maybe this weekend or next, you can’t depend on Vann being open all the time.
As we saw early on in the year, teams were doubling Vann and bringing an extra guy down in the box to stop the run to basically challenge USC by saying, if you want to beat us then you’ll have to do so by throwing it to someone other than Vann.
Whether that be Jaheim Bell, Xavier Legette, EJ Jenkins, or whoever, teams won’t be able to pack the box as much and will keep the defense honest.
BOTTOM LINE:
A week later with an impressive showing against Florida I’ll say it again for those who were ready to call it a season or even the hambones who were ready to write-off Shane Beamer, a first-year head coach who inherited a (2-8) who the year before that only won 4 games… USC is better than they were last year.
They’re better in special teams and defense (although they can still improve but let’s not forget how things were left a year ago) but overall offensively have took steps backwards. That was until last week. Another strong showing offensively, regardless of who the opponent is this week and their struggles to stop the run, will very likely help USC earn their sixth win of the season to become bowl eligible for the for time since 2018.
