South Carolina football: Will Muschamp’s seat on fire following blowout loss
By Jacob Elsey
South Carolina football growing tired of head coach.
In Saturday’s home matchup with Texas A&M, the South Carolina football team suffered its worst conference loss of the Will Muschamp era, a 48-3 shellacking in Williams-Brice Stadium. The loss came following a bye week, as the Gamecocks looked completely unprepared despite having an extra week to get ready for the Aggies.
The loss was the program’s second straight blowout, as the 45-point defeat followed a 52-24 beating at the hands of LSU, who started a freshman quarterback in his first ever collegiate action.
After a huge upset of No. 15 Auburn, Will Muschamp and Co. have fallen on their faces, being outcoached in all facets of the game in back-to-back contests. The Gamecocks have been outscored 100-27 in their last two games, and the coaching staff’s stubbornness to try a new face under center has the Carolina fanbase irate.
Muschamp refused to remove Collin Hill from the game against LSU, despite South Carolina being down four touchdowns for much of the fourth quarter. Hill’s performance was even worse against the Aggies, as he completed just 8-of-21 passes for a season-low 66 yards. He also threw two interceptions, making it three straight contests with at least one turnover.
With the Gamecocks down 41-0 in the game’s final period, Muschamp finally made the move to get Hill out of the lineup, but even then, he failed to give his reserves much of a chance at being productive.
Rather than handing the keys over to either Ryan Hilinski or Luke Doty, the coaching staff rotated the two signal callers over the final few drives, which didn’t allow either to find any sort of groove in the offense. Hilinski did go 4-of-6 six in the fourth quarter for 34 yards, leading to the team’s only scoring drive.
In less than a month, South Carolina has gone from a team that was seemingly turning the corner to a program in disarray. Will Muschamp’s seat, which was relatively safe just three weeks ago, is now scorching once again. The latest listless performance had fans in Williams-Brice Stadium chanting “Fire Muschamp” throughout the second half. If the wins don’t start coming quickly, that’s exactly what will happen.
CURRENT SEAT HEAT (out of 10): LEVEL 11 (can he recover or are the flames too high?)
WEEK 7: LEVEL 8 (bye week, no change)
WEEK 6: LEVEL 8 (that didn’t take long, scorching once again)
WEEK 5: LEVEL 5 (heat down after big win)
WEEK 4: LEVEL 8 (cooling, but not by much)
WEEK 3: LEVEL 10 (scorching)
WEEK 2: LEVEL 8 (heating up)
WEEK 1: LEVEL 7 (toasty)