One of the biggest questions people ask when they talk about South Carolina potentially playing true freshman quarterback Jake Bentley on Saturday against Massachusetts is “why did they wait until now” to play him.



Gamecocks head coach Will Muschamp, while not divulging his specific plans at the position, did shed some light on the subject during Tuesday’s press conference.



“Coming out of camp, Perry Orth and Brandon McIlwain were ahead of Jake,” he said. “As we’ve continued to work and meet and practice, the reps have continued to add up, we’ve tried to evaluate the situation on what’s best for our football team. We’re not going to make a change for the sake of making a change. We’re going to make a change if we believe it benefits our football team. Those are the decisions we have to make as a staff.”



Muschamp reinforces something that gets lost on plenty of people- football is a developmental sport and it’s always plausible that a player passes another player (or two) based on said development.



Another way to look at it, just spitballing here, is that there hasn’t really been a good time to play Bentley before now, given the performances of the other two quarterbacks and the games on the schedule.



Let’s review…



-Orth starts at Vanderbilt and leads a come-back win the first game of the season. Orth earns the start the next week at Mississippi State.



-The Gamecocks played their worst half of football in the first half at Starkville, falling behind 24-0, McIlwain relieves Orth in the second half, leads two touchdown drives while throwing the only two touchdown passes Carolina has had this season and earns the start against East Carolina the following week.



-McIlwain starts against the Pirates, plays well in the first quarter and makes some key throws in the fourth when ECU was mounting a comeback. The Gamecocks win, so McIlwain is the definite starter at Kentucky.



-Carolina loses to the Wildcats, 17-10, and the offense struggles against a bad defense for the second straight week. But, you don’t want to bench a true freshman quarterback just because of one loss, especially when he won his first start. McIlwain gets the start against Texas A&M.



-McIlwain struggles in the passing game against the Aggies. Granted, the Gamecocks were missing their top three receivers, but Orth comes in off the bench in the fourth quarter and throws for 188 yards. He looks like the accurate passer that he was in the Vanderbilt game, so he gets the start against Georgia.



-At this point, heading into the game with the Bulldogs, do you really throw a second true freshman who hasn’t taken a snap out there against a rival in a game that is winnable when your fifth-year senior performed so well the previous week? No.



-So Orth starts against UGA and comes back to earth a bit. His stats aren’t bad (a season-high 288 yards passing), but there were some errant throws and mistakes that you don’t normally get from a veteran. South Carolina loses 28-14 and continues to look anemic on offense and halfway through the season it's time to start re-evaluating things as you are now last in FBS in scoring offense.



So that brings us to the bye week. If you are going to play Bentley, the time is now. You give him two weeks to prepare for a team that you should beat and ease him into the mix. Also, as Muschamp said, he’s made a big push in practice. Don’t think for a minute that they would play him if he were not out-performing the other two in practice in some areas and perhaps all areas.



Timing is essential in football, especially when you are dealing with things as important as a quarterback change and you are dealing with two true freshmen. If indeed the move is made, the timing could not have been better or handled better from the standpoint of South Carolina’s coaching staff.