Early in the season, Marcus Satterfield offered up a letter grade of how he had been through four games and gave him an average C-minus.
Wednesday, as he prepares for the regular season finale in his first year at South Carolina, he revisited just how well he thinks he and the offensive have done this season, especially lately.
“I’m always self-hate all the time against myself, but I think I’ve done a really nice job. I’m proud of the product we’re putting out there. Is it perfect or fun to watch all the time as a fan? I’m sure it’s not,” Satterfield said.
“We’re making the decisions as a staff in order to be successful as a team. Could we go out there and do certain things to win the stat game and raise our rankings? Certainly we could, but we’re doing what it takes to win right now.”
The Gamecocks have struggled at times this season but have rattled off two wins over their last three games with point totals of 40, 28 and 21 points.
Offensively it’s been tough this year with South Carolina on its third quarterback of the season and having to deal with an offensive line struggling for large portions of the season.
As it stands right now the Gamecocks rank eighth in yards per pass attempt (7.3) 11th in the SEC in yards per rush (3.7), 13th in all three of points per game (23.3), yards per play (5.3) and third down rate (34.7).
Over the last three weeks (two wins, one loss) the Gamecocks are averaging 29.7 points, 5.4 yards per play, 7.6 yards per pass and 5.1 yards per rush when adjusting for sack yards. The offense has turned the ball over four times and allowed eight sacks.
“A team might be struggling and all they talk about is coach so-and-so is really struggling this year they have all these injuries or they’re playing with young players and doing all this stuff. I think we’ve done a nice job—coach beamer and us offensively and defensively—use nothing as an excuse,” Satterfield said.
“Have we missed a lot of players? Definitely. Are we on our third quarterback? Definitely. Did our GA play quarterback? Yes. Was it fun? No. But it’s very damn rewarding when you come off beating Florida and beat Auburn and fought your butt off. It’s not pretty and I understand that but I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”
South Carolina showed signs of life against Auburn in a 21-17 win, averaging 5.5 yards per play (third most this season in SEC play) and a season best 10.5 yards per pass attempt.
“We’re not to be 500 yards a game, 50 points right now but we’re going to attack every game with a mission of this is how we have a chance to be successful in this game now let’s go do it with the right mindset,” Satterfield said.
Inconsistency has been a narrative around this offense with the Gamecocks putting together a solid performance against Florida in a win only to struggle for the majority of the Missouri game before responding with a 21-3 run against Auburn in the win.
Those inconsistencies can’t happen this week with South Carolina playing a Clemson defense holding opponents to 16.4 points per game and 4.6 yards per play.
“You’re making strides but the inconsistency—the ups and downs and up and down—we have to stop that. Coach Beamer addressed it today. We we had good practice yesterday but there’s still signs of some inconsistency in practice,” Satterfield said. “We have to sew those up and make sure when we fix and issue it stays fixed. It doesn’t come back down and we have to keep fixing it every other week.
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