South Carolina football: Will Muschamp details final drive

Media, fans question South Carolina football’s clock management on final drive.

South Carolina took over at its own 22-yard line trailing by two touchdowns with a little over eight minutes remaining in the game. The Gamecock offense had moved the ball well over the course of the second half, and was trying to claw its way back into a game that looked like it was over just a quarter earlier.

Needing to score and get the ball back to have a chance to win, one would assume that the offense would show a bit of urgency. Instead, they methodically marched down the field on what would become an 18-play, 74-yard drive that took up over seven minutes of game time. South Carolina would drive inside the Florida five-yard line before being stopped on four straight plays.

It was puzzling to see the slow pace, and had Collin Hill not missed a wide open Shi Smith in the endzone on fourth-and-goal, South Carolina would’ve pulled within seven points. It almost seemed as though the coaching staff was playing for the onside kick, as opposed to moving quickly and getting a stop on defense.

To be fair, the defense had struggled all day to stop a potent Florida passing attack, but it does seem odd that the staff would play for an onside kick, which is only successful around one out of every seven times. It begs the question to be asked, ‘Did Will Muschamp not trust his defense to make a final stop, or was the clock management on the final drive just that bad?’

Here’s what coach Muschamp had to say on the matter after the game.

"“We didn’t want to run seven minutes off the clock, but at the end of the day we wanted to score a touchdown. We needed to score a touchdown to make it a one score game. In that situation, after we got the fourth down conversion (at our 49-yard line) I want to say there was a little above five minutes left in the game. We talked on the sidelines that we need to speed it up a little bit. (Quarterback) Collin (Hill) dropped back the next snap and had a scramble and ran out of bounds on our sidelines. Then we had the sprint out to (wide receiver) Rico (Powers) and got another first down.“Then we had a series that created some issues for us (starting at Florida’s 25-yard line). From a time management standpoint, you have two timeouts left. If we score a touchdown within two and a half to three minutes, we can kick the ball deep, use our timeouts and have an opportunity to get the ball back with no timeouts. Generally, with two timeouts and a change of possession on a kick, they can run off anywhere between 44 and 48 seconds. Then we’re getting the ball back with 45 seconds to a minute, which is really a long time in college football because the clock stops on first downs. That’s what we were hoping for.“Hill scrambles (after the Powers first down) and the clock continues to run. We run a RPO with them thinking we’re going to throw it and they jump on it. We had an opportunity for an explosive run there. The clock is still running, but it’s third and two. The most important thing is we need to score a touchdown. Now we have to get a first down. We had a play signaled in, Collin changed it at the line and it took a little longer than we wanted it to to run the power play. We only get one yard. Instead of calling a timeout there we made a decision they were gassed on defense and we put our big people in the game on fourth and one to make sure we got the first down. Again, the goal of the drive was to score a touchdown. That’s what we had to have in order to give us a chance.“We get the fourth down conversion with under two minutes to play. We’re in a situation where we’re going to have to onside kick with two timeouts after a score. We threw a swing pass to (running back) Kevin (Harris). He gets the first down. The clock stops for first down and then we have four incomplete passes. In a perfect world we would have liked to have three minutes on the clock with two timeouts to go. I said in the postgame we needed to be a little crisper and faster, especially after the fourth down conversion (at midfield). I don’t know how many more times I have to say it. We needed to be faster and crisper at the line in getting things called.“Also, in a one-minute offense, you are limited formationally in where you can put people. In that situation we were still doing a good job of moving Shi (Smith) around in different spots to give him some opportunities. (Florida) was playing more quarters coverage (with us trying) to push the ball down the field. We wanted to be faster in the operation, we didn’t execute as well as we would have liked and we had some unfortunate down and distances come up on the drive as we were trying to save two timeouts to try to win the game.”"

I don’t think many are questioning that Muschamp is knowledgeable about what the Florida defense was giving to the Carolina offense. If dink-and-dunks were the only option of successfully moving the ball down the field, that’s fine. Muschamp, himself, said that had the Florida defense played a little less deep coverage on that final drive, they would’ve tried for a big play over the top as opposed to continuing to drop it off underneath.

And he brings up a good point about being able to move Shi Smith in motion to create mismatches prior to the snap, which you can’t always do in a hurry-up type mode. But seeing the offense continue to huddle, walk slowly to the line of scrimmage, and consistently snap the ball with under five seconds on the play clock was hard to watch.

Gamecock fans are frustrated with the coaching staff, and even more frustrated with the blunders that seem to happen on a weekly basis, preventing the team from pulling out close victories. South Carolina has proven to be competitive with the SEC’s best, but more times than not, they’ve failed to get out of their own way.

The offense will hope to be a bit more efficient in next week’s matchup against Vanderbilt, but until the Gamecocks start winning some games, Muschamp’s decisions will continue to be scrutinized.  His seat is growing warmer after the 0-2 start.