How South Carolina plans to cut down on explosive plays

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL

Entering the bye week, Will Muschamp was asked about and rattled off some areas where his team could improve, and near the top of the list was cutting down on the amount of explosive plays the defense allowed.

It was a focal point during practice last week and the staff is hoping they made progress before heading to Athens to face a top five opponent in Georgia.

“We’ll find out Saturday,” Muschamp said. “We went back and looked at our first five ballgames on whether it could have been an error in all three areas—up front, linebacker or secondary—a busted assignment, are we doing too much? There’s a lot of questions you ask when you look at those sort of things. Is it a coaching issue? Is it a scheme issue? Is it a player issue? Those are all things we try to help minimize those things moving forward.”

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The Gamecocks (2-3, 1-2 SEC) are allowing 5.6 yards per play against all opponents this season, 65th in the country and ninth in the SEC.

Their biggest knock, though, comes in allowing explosive plays (passes 20-plus yards, rushes of 15 yards or more).

In four games against Power 5 teams, they’ve allowed 48 explosive plays, an average of 12 per game. They’ve given up 1,053 yards on explosives, which accounts for 62.4 percent of the total yards they’ve allowed against non-FCS opponents (1,687).

Of the explosives, 26 have come in the pass game while 22 have been on the ground. They’ve allowed 392 rushing yards—62.9 percent of rushing yards allowed against P5 teams—and 661 passing yards by explosive plays (62.1 percent), but 344 came against Alabama.

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“We have to tackle better,” Aaron Sterling said. “It’s about getting lined up. Communication’s a big key.”

Sterling is right with communication being pretty vital to the defense limiting big plays. If one guy is out of alignment, then it could result in getting bounced of a gap and then the running back is bursting by them or the receiver has green grass ahead of him.

It’s something the Gamecocks spent the bye week working on as well.

“Our safeties, they have to line up,” Sterling said. “They see everything so they have to make sure everyone’s in the right spot. They communicate with the DBs, the DBs communicate with the linebackers and the linebackers communicate with the D-line. It’s a trickle down effect.”

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They’ll get tested right out of the gate to see how far they’ve come defensively against No. 3 Georgia.

The Bulldogs (5-0, 2-0 SEC) are currently third nationally (second in the SEC) averaging 7.8 yards per play and their rushing offense is best in the SEC, averaging 250.4 yards on the ground each game.

The Gamecocks come in with the eighth-best scoring defense in the SEC (24.4 points/game), ninth overall in rush defense (139 yards/game) and 11th in pass defense (251.8 yards/game).

“The bottom line is we need to be more consistent defensively,” Muschamp said. “We’ve done some good things at times but we haven’t done them enough. Those are things we have to go back and be a more consistent team overall.”