Installing an offense with Mike Bobo before the season was going to be an interesting challenge even with all available practice time, and that plan was thrown a curveball a few weeks ago.

With spring practice essentially canceled, the Gamecocks don’t have in-person practice or learning time to install the offense so they’re doing it over videoconference for the next few weeks.

“As a team we’re utilizing this week four hours, which we’re allowed by the Southeastern Conference,” Will Muschamp said. “Last week we took install one from spring, which is day one install, and went through that the entire week for about 30 minutes with our players four times. We’ll increase that this week and go through install two, three, four and five which will take us to May 1, which is our five installations of spring.”

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The Gamecocks have one of five offensive installations under their belt with four more to go over the next few weeks before the end of the semester.

Bobo does have access to the Learn To Win app, which allows coaches to quiz players online to make sure they’re grasping all the concepts the coaches are introducing.

The good news is the Gamecocks did get five days of practice in the spring to begin the implementation of the offense.

With no practice anymore, Muschamp and Bobo have talked about contingency plans to expedite the installation process once everyone’s able to get back on campus.

“You get to day five of installation, and he scaled back a little back on days four and five to makes sure we got some concepts taught the right way offensively. We’ve talked about it. There may be, especially with new coordinators, more of a simple approach,” Muschamp said. “I don’t want that to scare anybody but you have to make sure your guys know what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. We’ll have a good teaching progression planned when we get back on campus with whatever time we have to be able to install what we need to install.”

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The Gamecocks aren’t sure when they’ll be able to reconvene this summer, which means they don’t know when they’ll get adequate on-field practice time to install the offense.

They’re scheduled to start their season Sept. 5 against Coastal Carolina and Muschamp thinks if the Gamecocks get on the practice field around when they normally do at the beginning of August it should give them ample time to install things.

“If you have a month of practice,” Muschamp said, “we’ll have plenty of time to install the offense.”

Because of the Coronavirus, the start of college football—and maybe the entire season—is put in jeopardy with teams potentially not having a lot of time to ramp up in the summer to start on time at the beginning of September.

Muschamp said Monday he and the rest of the team are planning on playing this fall until someone tells him they’re not, but it’s going to take some time to get ready and install the offense.

“I think it’ll take a minimum of eight weeks to get ready: a month to get in shape and a month of practice in order to prepare the right way and keep the student athlete healthy,” he said.

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Classes at South Carolina is going to be virtual through at least the end of July, which means the earliest the Gamecocks get back to campus would be August. If they take into consideration Muschamp’s eight week recommendation, that would mean starting the season in October.