Making sense of South Carolina’s offensive line struggles against Georgia State

South Carolina’s football season is officially underway.

USC downed Georgia State 35-14 in its season opener on Saturday to kick off Year 2 of the Shane Beamer era with a victory.

You’ve got questions. I’ve got answers. Let’s get to them in our weekly mailbag:

“Is it the blocking scheme the OL struggle with or is it a lack of strength and mobility?” — Andrew L.

“Is it possible to hire (Shawn) Elliott back as our o-line coach?” — David K.

Let’s just get to the point here — South Carolina’s offensive line was flat-out bad on Saturday night.

We’ve heard all offseason how the Gamecocks improved in the trenches, that the group was ready to prove doubters wrong. It’s only one game, but those doubters have 60 more minutes of ammo with which to work.

I get it, the offensive line is not solely responsible for some of the stalls South Carolina’s offense endured on Saturday.

Beamer pointed to the poor blocking from the receivers on the outside postgame and during his Sunday teleconference with local media. Tight ends Jaheim Bell and Austin Stogner each missed a handful of blocks that didn’t exactly help the equation, either.

Give Georgia State defensive coordinator Nate Fuqua some credit as well — his group did a nice job mixing in a handful of cornerback blitzes and a twists on the interior to muddy things in the middle. The Panthers also overloaded the line and sent more defenders than the Gamecocks could block.

Those things are all completely valid. They also don’t preclude the offensive line from having problems.

Pro Football Focus didn’t grade a single South Carolina lineman among its top 55 run blockers in the Southeastern Conference who played more than 20% of their team’s snaps in Week 1.

The Gamecocks were marginally better against the pass — including left tackle Jaylen Nichols, who ranked tied for seventh among SEC offensive linemen in pass blocking this week, per PFF. But the next closest South Carolina blocker? That’d be right tackle Dylan Wonnum at No. 49 in the league.

South Carolina’s six main offensive linemen — Jovaughn Gwyn, Eric Douglas, Vershon Lee, Jakai Moore, Nichols and Wonnum — averaged a 64.72 grade on PFF’s 100-point scale against the run in 2021. Those exact same players combined for a 53.72 average mark versus the run on Saturday while facing a Georgia State defense that had allowed 467.6 yards per contest in five games against Power Five opponents since 2017.

To actually address the questions that were asked, I don’t think the issue is scheme. Frankly, the notion the Gamecocks didn’t understand what offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield wanted to do blocking-wise a year ago was overblown.

But for a line that has well over 100 appearances between its five starters, South Carolina should not be averaging 2.5 yards per carry on 32 touches against a Sun Belt opponent — even if it is one of the better teams in that league.

In fairness, it’s one game. Coaching staffs have off days. Quarterbacks have off days. Entire units have off days. These things happen — especially in Game 1 of a three-month regular-season campaign that lacks any real preseason contest.

South Carolina’s line could turn around and maul Arkansas this week, proving the first game was an outlier.

For now, it looks like the norm.

“The disappointing thing is that, offensively, the gap between expectations and reality is still enormous, and that the offense has to continually grind and grind regardless of opponent.” — Len W.

This isn’t so much a question, but it gets at something I think got lost in the offensive line’s woes on Saturday.

I’m no talent evaluator. I know that. But from a pure eye-test perspective, I thought South Carolina looked way faster, increasingly athletic and significantly more organized offensively than it did a year ago.

Quarterback Spencer Rattler made one truly bad mistake with his second interception. He said as much after the game. Outside of that, I counted maybe two other throws out of his 37 total that seemed like forces. That’s about as good as it gets considering his gunslinger mentality. It comes with the territory.

Receivers Jalen Brooks and Antwane Wells both looked like legitimate playmakers on the outside. Brooks added two more highlight-reel catches to his résumé, while Wells was about a step or two from breaking roughly half of his team-high seven catches for a massive gain.

Running back MarShawn Lloyd also looked as healthy as he’s been since tearing his ACL two years ago. His two-yard fourth down conversion in the second quarter, I thought, was his most impressive run of the night given the way he shifted side-to-side and outran the Georgia State defense to the edge. That doesn’t happen a year ago.

I don’t remember any discernible play-call I took true issue with, either. I thought Satterfield called a nice game and did some interesting things formation-wise to get the ball in his most dynamic players’ hands. (See Bell’s 11 touches between receptions and rushes as proof of concept.)

The problem, again, is the offense has a ceiling if the line and the other blockers can’t protect.

South Carolina has the pieces. I really do think this group can finish in the top half of the SEC statistically, if not better. But it has to be able to get a push on the ground and give Rattler time to get through his progressions.

Then again, if the Gamecocks continue averaging two punt block touchdowns per game, I feel pretty confident saying South Carolina will win a lot of games this year — no matter what the offense looks like.

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Send us your Gamecock questions

Got questions you want answered about the team? Email Ben Portnoy at bportnoy@thestate.com and your question could appear in an upcoming mailbag Q&A.

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