We have the first outside confirmation that South Carolina’s offense plans to operate a much quicker tempo in 2018 from ESPN’s Tom Luginbill.





“I have never seen a (Gamecocks head coach) Will Muschamp offense like this,” Luginbill said on Sirius/XM radio. “No lie, you would have thought they were old-school Oregon with their tempo.”



The Gamecocks ran 166 plays during Saturday’s spring scrimmage and for some time now all accounts from within the program say that South Carolina’s new offense under coordinator Bryan McClendon is going to use a lot of up-tempo.



“(The increased tempo) has been a big difference for us,” quarterback Jake Bentley said. “We can see it on our defense. Every day, it seems they’re way out of position and we get a touchdown just because we’re going so fast.”

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When McClendon was named the Gamecocks’ full-time offensive coordinator after he called plays during South Carolina’s 26-19 comeback win against Michigan in the Outback Bowl, there wasn’t much publicly about his philosophy. Prior to joining the Gamecocks’s staff in 2016, his entire coaching career had been at Georgia under former Bulldogs and current Miami head coach Mark Richt. During bowl practices, it was noted that South Carolina was operating at a faster tempo and the Gamecocks did that during the win against the Wolverines, exploding for 23 points late in the game against the nation’s third-ranked defense.



Based on this information, it’s now evident that South Carolina will transition to more of an attacking offense. The Gamecocks were a bit methodical last season with former assistant Kurt Roper calling the plays and using pro-style concepts within the scheme in both the run and passing game. That makes sense considering South Carolina’s other assistant coaches on offense, including quarterbacks coach Dan Werner, running backs coach Bobby Bentley and offensive line coach Eric Wolford, have years of experience working in up-tempo attacks.



It has been noted this offseason that the approach to the offense, where essentially a new system is being created from scratch (there will be some plays that are kept from the previous scheme), is more of a group effort than before. Werner in particular flourished as the offensive coordinator at Ole Miss with this style of attack under former Rebels head coach Hugh Freeze.

“If you see the ref sprint to have to get back to set up, that means we are going fast,” Werner said last week.



South Carolina ranked No. 12 in the SEC in points per game, rushing yards per game and total yards per game in 2017, despite finishing with a 9-4 record and second in the SEC East. The Gamecocks will hold their annual Garnet and Black spring game at Noon Saturday.