SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL

After the Gamecocks’ first rough secondary performance, Will Muschamp shook up the secondary by shuffling players around and inserting RJ Roderick in at safety.

South Carolina’s coming off another poor performance against Tennessee, but Muschamp said Sunday he doesn’t anticipate any changes on the back end.

“We were out of position in the Alabama game; flat out, weren’t in position to make a play as opposed to being in position to make a play,” he said. “When you’re in position to make a play, sometimes they make a play…They made more plays last night. There’s no question you have to schematically go back and revisit some things but I think we’re playing our best players right now.”

Also see: More in-depth stats from Saturday's game

The Gamecocks gave up 351 yards to the Vols with Marquez Callaway and Jauan Jennings accounting for 276 of those. Tennessee had scoring plays of 55, 48 and 19 yards as the Gamecocks allowed the most passing yards to an unranked team since Ole Miss last year.

The primary reason they were successful is the Vols ran a lot of long-developing, deep crossing routes where the Gamecocks weren’t able to make the plays when they needed to.

While there aren’t any anticipated changes to the personnel—they started J.T. Ibe, Roderick, Israel Mukuamu and Jaycee Horn—Muschamp did say the coaches will adjust some things schematically for Vanderbilt.

“You have to look at some different things back there to help our guys,” he said. “When you get into situations where people are throwing these huge over routes, you have to have help from the backside. We certainly could have schematically helped ourselves there, especially when they were doing eight-man protections to get some help form the backside.”

Also see: Instant analysis from Saturday's loss

A big reason, Muschamp said, for the Vols’ success in the passing game was they kept seven or eight linemen in to slow down the Gamecocks’ pass rush that had been devastating the last few weeks.

Because of that, it opened up a few more one-on-one matchups down the field and the Vols made more plays.

“In those situations to cover down the field,” he said. “In those situations it limits you throwing the ball but creates some fifty-fifty balls. They made the plays and we didn’t. we have to find ways to defend those things better.”

The Gamecocks lost 41-21 Saturday night and return home this week for the Homecoming game against Vanderbilt at 7:30 p.m.