Whenever Josh Vann plays a snap this season, he’ll be doing it in his third different offense in four years at South Carolina.
Vann has been a piece of schemes under Bryan McClendon, Mike Bobo and now Marcus Satterfield and has seen multiple ways play callers operate from the hurry up style of McClendon to varying pro-style offenses under Bobo and now Satterfield.
He’s seen a thing or two in college, and through spring and now four camp practices likes the quite-literal pro style offense he’s playing in now.
“The biggest thing this is like a head start to the league,” he said. “The only time we no huddle is in like two minute. We huddle every play. That’s a head start to get comfortable with how they do stuff in the league. It’s all over the place but you get everything out of this offense; we run the ball, pass the ball, play action…You get the whole package.”
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Satterfield took over as the Gamecocks’ offensive coordinator during the coaching change this offseason after spending the last nine years—outside of two years as Tennessee Tech’s head coach—with current Carolina Panthers’ head coach Matt Rhule.
Last season, he was an offensive assistant under Joe Brady, the architect behind LSU’s historic offense in 2019.
Satterfield has said publicly this iteration of South Carolina will look like a blend between some of Temple’s old offenses along with some concepts from LSU and Oklahoma, Shane Beamer’s previous stop.
While some of the route concepts in the passing game are still the same, players are taking nicely to what they’ve seen so far.
“It’s still a pro style offense so it’s not too terribly different. Some of the words still flow together, but it’s some concepts are the same concepts,” Jalen Brooks said. “We might not have as many downfield trick plays but it’s a simulated NFL offense.”
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The biggest thing exiting spring will be the Gamecocks’ downfield passing attack, which Beamer mentioned needing to be better after the spring game.
South Carolina ranked 13th in the SEC in pass plays of at least 10 yards, 11th in pass plays of 20 yards or more and 11th in pass plays of 30 yards or more but are devoting time during practice to taking those.
“We a good amount (of deep shots). It depends on the practice. It’s only day four so we’re still installing quick game and stuff like that,” Brooks said. “We haven’t gotten into all the tricky stuff, but I know for a fact in spring we took quite a few deep shots. One thing we’re stressing is we have to get better taking those shots. In the spring we’d take probably four or five in practice, so it was a good amount.”
The pass game will feature what’s expected to be a talented running back room to be involved heavily.
Last season Kevin Harris caught 21 passes for 159 yards and a touchdown and wants to increase his production in 2021.
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“We’re trying to do more in the passing game, so we have to get better at that,” he said. “We’re trying to get the backs more receiving yards.”
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