Muschamp talks Bentley's performance, chances to see Hilinski or Joyner

Saturday was a game to forget for Jake Bentley, who finished with his worst passing totals in over a year as the senior quarterback couldn’t orchestrate a game-winning drive and the Gamecocks dropped their season opener to North Carolina.

Postgame, Will Muschamp said he didn’t want to comment on his senior’s play until after watching the film, so Sunday night was his first chance to give his take on what went wrong offensively.

“I think he needs to throw the ball better. I think there was some protection (issues). We had a couple routes run incorrectly,” he said. “We didn’t play particularly well at the receiver position. It’s not all on one person. I know everybody wants to blame one guy for it, but that’s not the case. He needs to play better at the quarterback position but we need to play better around him. We didn’t do that."

Also see: Five Takeaways from the UNC game

Bentley finished going 16-for-30 for 142 yards, the fewest since throwing for 126 against Clemson in 2017. He’d toss a touchdown but couldn’t piece anything together late.

In the fourth quarter he’d complete just two of his nine attempts and threw both of his interceptions the final five minutes of the game.

After the game, Muschamp said the coaches are re-evaluating every position on the team and as of Sunday that was still going on; he stayed mum on if backup Ryan Hilinski or Dakereon Joyner would see any snaps this week at quarterback.

“We’ll meet again tonight as a staff and we’ll move through that,” Muschamp said. “There’s a lot of variables involved in that, and it wasn’t all on one person. I can assure you of that.”

Also see: Trying to add context to the season-opening loss

Bentley struggled to get a clean pocket all game and that caused some problems in terms of being able to get off good throws. He was hurried four times and sacked three times.

“He had to move around. There’s no doubt we didn’t do a good enough job and weren’t as firm as we needed to be in the middle of the line,” Muschamp said. “That’s where we got a lot of pushback, which creates issues especially when you’re stepping up in the pocket. You don’t have as much of lanes as far as stepping up.”

Also see: Instant analysis from Saturday's loss

Muschamp also reiterated on his weekly teleconference the Gamecocks had a poor showing at receiver with a few guys running the wrong routes, which affected Bentley.

Shi Smith was the only receiver with more than two receptions, leading the team with five catches for just 55 yards.

“We had some routes not run correct down the field,” Muschamp said. “He’s anticipating someone come open and a guy running what we call a bender stays vertical. There are things that happened that weren’t Jake Bentley’s fault.”

The next time Muschamp is scheduled to meet with the media is Tuesday for his weekly press conference at 12:30 p.m. where he’ll update any potential tweaks to the Gamecocks’ offense and the quarterback position.