SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL

If there’s one talking point Will Muschamp’s stuck to the last three-plus seasons at South Carolina, it’s explosive plays.

He wants to have an offense capable of big plays at any point during the game, but the Gamecocks probably won’t look back on their explosiveness from Saturday’s game with fondness.

The Gamecocks had arguably their worst day offensively in terms of explosiveness in almost a year, for reasons Muschamp says were based some on execution.

"We called 17 shots down the field. We do a pretty extensive quality control and self-evaluation of what we need to do to improve and get better,” he said. “I came in on Sunday and one of the first questions I asked to our offensive staff was we need to attack the field vertically.”

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For the purpose of this article, explosive plays are track as defined by the coaching staff: runs of 10 or more yards and passes of at least 15.

Saturday the Gamecocks had just eight explosive plays—five passes, three runs—which was the lowest against an unranked team since racking up just seven against Missouri last season.

Of their 270 yards offensively, 165 came on explosive plays. On average last season, the Gamecocks averaged 10.4 explosive plays and 257.1 yards on explosive plays per game and totals from the North Carolina were both lower.

Saturday, they’d average 20.63 yards per explosive play, the lowest since averaging just 19 yards per explosive in the season opener against Coastal Carolina.

“We had 17 calls where the primary read was a vertical read down the field,” Muschamp said. “With that being said, protection breaks down, the route is covered, which changes the coverage and changes the read obviously. But there were 17 shots called in the game. Not to say that they all were thrown because of different reasons that I just went through.”

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So now the question becomes how the Gamecocks can fix it and turn into a more explosive offense reminiscent of last year’s game against Ole Miss.

The biggest, and probably most obvious answer is like Muschamp said trying to stretch the field vertically more.

The longest run of the day came on Tavien Feaster’s 34-yard touchdown run while Jake Bentley’s longest throw came on a 26-yard connection to Shi Smith. Bentley only had two passes of over 20 yards; that and Kyle Markway’s 22-yard touchdown catch.

“I mean, obviously I don’t think we took a lot of shots downfield,” Rico Dowdle said. “I think we need to take more shots and things like that.”

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The easiest way to do that, it seems, is to force-feed some guys will All-SEC potential in Bryan Edwards and Shi Smith, who had relatively quiet days offensively for their standards.

Both had really good days on special teams but Smith finished with a team–best 55 yards on five catches and Edwards had just one catch for seven yards, the lowest reception total since his freshman year against Clemson and the fewest yards he’s ever put up in his career.

“We've got two guys that have been very effective in training camp in Bryan (Edwards) and Shi (Smith). And they've got to touch the ball more. We need to get more touches to those guys where we're guaranteed we're going to get the ball in their hands regardless of the coverage and circumstances. That's something we've talked about."

Will the Gamecock offense rebound after a pretty dismal showing Saturday? The next few weeks against Charleston Southern, Alabama, Missouri and Kentucky will give fans that answer.

The Gamecocks kick off against the Bucs at noon Saturday on the SEC Network before hosting No. 2 Alabama the following week on CBS at 3:30 p.m.