South Carolina coach Will Muschamp said he thought the Gamecocks could run the ball against Appalachian State, but the Gamecocks mustered just 21 rushing yards in a 20-15 loss.

“The pick six was a huge momentum for them,” Muschamp said after the game. “But extremely disappointed for our seniors. We don’t have the ability right now where we are right not to run the football, we’re going to struggle. It was evident of that. We had a bunch of drops.”

Muschamp added that the Gamecocks are inconsistent with personnel as they had at least three wide receivers who were limited or out with injuries.

“Just not efficient enough to have any production offensively until the end,” Muschamp said. “We had no push. They outnumbered us in the box. We were inefficient throwing the football when we needed to early in the game.”

Muschamp said South Carolina has run the ball well except in three games, and the Gamecocks have three losses in those games.

“We don’t have a second pitch, we can run it, create some things, but we’ve got to be more efficient,” Muschamp said. “We’ve got to be able to run the ball.”

He added, “They were moving a lot, which we knew that coming into the game, we had a hard time with the movement. That was the major issue. … We have some inconsistencies as far as personnel outside, and then we just didn’t do a good enough job inside blocking in the run game to create some run game. … We need to go back and figure out why we didn’t get as much movement up front. We got stale-mated on the line of scrimmage by a smaller defensive line.”

Muschamp was asked if he needs to make any offensive coaching changes.

“Right now, we just need to be more productive,” he said. “No, not at this time. We’re inconsistent in personnel in what we’ve got to be able to do. It’s a little bit unfair out there right now. We’re struggling in a lot of ways as far as those things are concerned, but we need to be more productive.”

The struggles in the passing game were not only on QB Ryan Hilinski as he said there were multiple dropped passes when the ball hit receivers in the hands.

Muschamp was largely happy with how the defense played to hold an efficient offense to 202 yards.