Why South Carolina didn't blitz as much against LSU

Ask Will Muschamp, and he’ll be the first to tell you he and Travaris Robinson wanted to dial up as many creative blitzes against true freshman TJ Finley Saturday night.

But, as the game started, it became harder and harder to do that and ultimately resulted in one of the Gamecocks’ worst pass rush days of the season.

“If we got them in down or distances where we felt like we could have done some of those things. They were running the ball so well it had nothing to do with what he was doing,” Muschamp said. “That was the thing. They were presenting a six-man box and we had a seven-man box most of the time.”

Also see: Ten in-depth stats from Saturday's loss

The Gamecocks, who came in as one of the best sack teams in the SEC, didn’t get a single recorded pressure on Finley, who was making is first collegiate start.

Finley wound up completing 81 percent of his passes for 265 yards, averaging 12.6 yards per attempt.

The biggest struggle getting to Finley was LSU’s success in the run game, not giving the Gamecocks many opportunities to pin their ears back and dial up some more exotic of blitzes.

LSU had 10 third downs and only two third downs where the Tigers had to gain more than five yards.

“I think when a team’s able to run the football at you like they were we didn’t get into many loose down situations,” Muschamp said. “We didn’t have many loose down opportunities to rush the passer much as far as the four-man rush is concerned.”

Also see: What went right, what went wrong against LSU

LSU did have an inordinate amount of success in the run game, going for 276 yards on the ground and averaged well over five yards per carry.

Muschamp came into the game thinking the size of LSU’s offensive line would create problems, so they wanted to get creative with defensive line positioning.

They tried to shift more and it created a few explosive plays for the Tigers.

“We felt like the best thing we needed to do was move the defensive line. We were a little bit smaller than they were and we wanted to create some different gap changeups to try and fit the run,” Muschamp said. “At times we did it well and unfortunately we didn’t do it well. I would have love to be in more advantageous down and distances to do more exotic things.”

Also see: Teleconference recap from Sunday

Muschamp said the Gamecocks blitzed somewhere close to 30 times on 75 defensive snaps, but it wasn’t enough to affect the quarterback.

“A lot of times when we called four-man rushes we didn’t get enough pressure with four,” he said. “We didn’t get ahead enough in the sticks down and distance-wise. We struggled on first down, which created issues for us on second and third.”