The South Carolina Gamecocks could see it and taste it in their 2017 season opener against a North Carolina State team which made a strong push for the ACC championship: Deebo Samuel made their offense scary. South Carolina used to have a potent offense when Connor Shaw and Bruce Ellington donned a Gamecock uniform, but when those stars left the scene, Steve Spurrier’s tenure ran out of gas. Will Muschamp was not expected to preside over a revived South Carolina offense, but with Samuel joining quarterback Jake Bentley, the Gamecocks had the high-end talent to light up the scoreboard.
By Matt Zemek
South Carolina tore through North Carolina State’s defense. Bradley Chubb wasn’t able to dominate the game when Bentley was able to throw the ball in the air, and Samuel was there to catch it in difficult positions. South Carolina found a pitch-and-catch combination which would not only demand attention from defenses, but could make plays in spite of good defense. Samuel established himself as a jump-ball-snatching dynamo who could face considerable defensive pressure yet still come down with the pigskin for a long gain. When the Gamecocks prepared to host Kentucky in September, they were unbeaten and had every reason to be highly optimistic about their season.
Then Deebo got knocked out for the season with an injury.
Immediately, the Gamecocks’ offense ceased to be overwhelmingly potent. South Carolina couldn’t stretch the field; couldn’t throw as many 50-50 balls and know that everything would work out fine; couldn’t wield the kind of hammer which would throw a defense off balance in other areas of the field. Against Kentucky, Texas A&M, Georgia and Clemson, South Carolina’s offense was overmatched. This same offense thrived against Arkansas’ sinking ship under Bret Bielema and responded well in big moments against Vanderbilt and its struggling secondary, but what might have been a 10-2 regular season instead became an 8-4 campaign.
The Deebo difference was sorely missed. South Carolina will try to keep it — and maximize it — for a full season in 2018.
Last year’s South Carolina season was, when adjusted for circumstances, a clear success. Finding eight regular season wins — nine overall due to a remarkable comeback victory over Michigan in the Outback Bowl — despite Samuel missing 10 regular season games rated as a considerable achievement. South Carolina very successfully achieved what Missouri, Vanderbilt and Kentucky all hoped to do but couldn’t: Step into the vacuum created by the erosion of Tennessee and Florida. South Carolina was clearly the second-best team in the SEC East this past season, parlaying that finish into a January bowl game. In a division crying out for someone to step up, Georgia smashed through everyone else. South Carolina wasn’t a force of nature, but it did push past the five other teams which failed to gain enough traction. The Gamecocks defeated Florida (the team Kentucky still couldn’t solve last season even under ideal circumstances). They won in Knoxville. They handled Missouri on the road, the one SEC game in which Samuel played the whole way last season.
South Carolina was good enough to outclass every non-Georgia team in 2017, despite the prolonged absence of its best offensive player. Now comes the challenge the Gamecocks want to meet: Making a New Year’s Six bowl game. With Deebo in the fold, there is no reason South Carolina shouldn’t aspire to such a goal.
While it is true that Tennessee couldn’t be much worse than it was under Butch Jones, and while it is similarly true that Florida is unlikely to struggle as profoundly under Dan Mullen as it did last year in the soap operatic nightmare which was Jim McElwain’s final season, it remains that the Vols and Gators are immersed in transitions. These transitions — as shown in Year 1 of Kirby Smart’s tenure in Georgia — typically don’t get resolved (not in full). Tennessee and Florida might soon be very good, but “soon” means 2019 and not 2018. Georgia is going to be the big Dawg in the East this year, but the idea that South Carolina can retain second place — this time with a 10-2 regular season record instead of an 8-4 mark — is entirely realistic.
This jump from 8-4 to 10-2, if achieved, would represent the “Deebo difference,” the added measure of firepower South Carolina’s offense could use to influence the progression of its 2018 season. The Gamecocks would have more margin for error — partly because Samuel is the kind of player who takes pressure off his quarterback, and partly because the rest of the offensive roster would be placed in much better positions to succeed.
Two teams clearly outclass the Gamecocks: Georgia, and USC’s in-state rival at Clemson University. The realistic goal for the Gamecocks this season is to win all the other games. The vulnerable East could very reasonably give South Carolina a 5-0 record in non-Georgia games, a road trip to Florida being the big challenge. The non-conference games other than Clemson — Coastal Carolina, Marshall, Chattanooga — should provide a 3-0 record. The two SEC West games the Gamecocks will play are against Texas A&M and Ole Miss. The A&M game, the harder of the two, is at home.
It won’t be easy, but a 10-0 record is not out of the question — not if a Cadillac talent at wide receiver can partner with a Bentley at quarterback and go “full Deebo” against beleaguered SEC DBs.
South Carolina — the program whose offense wasn’t supposed to measure up under Will Muschamp — will make the first New Year’s Six (formerly BCS/Bowl Alliance/Bowl Coalition) game in school history if the Deebo difference becomes as substantial as everyone in Columbia hopes it will be.
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