What Will Muschamp said after Saturday’s narrow victory over Tennessee
By Adam Spencer
Published:
The South Carolina Gamecocks earned a narrow, hard-fought 27-24 victory over Tennessee at home on Saturday night, improving to 4-3 on the season.
The win improved coach Will Muschamp’s career record vs. the Vols to an impressive 7-0, but it wasn’t without controversy, as a late play seemed to result in a South Carolina fumble, but it wasn’t reviewed.
After the game, Muschamp discussed a number of things, including the decision to move OC Bryan McClendon from the press box to the sidelines.
Here’s what Muschamp had to say after the big home victory (via 247Sports):
On starting Ty’Son Williams over Rico Dowdle:
“I think Ty’Son has done a nice job. He’s practiced well. So much for us goes into how you practice. I know I’m somewhat young, not as young as I used to be, but I’m still old-fashioned. You normally are going to play like you practice. That’s just what I believe. It’s not a knock on Rico at all. He works hard. We have confidence in all those guys.”
On moving OC Bryan McClendon from the press box to the sideline:
“We haven’t been as productive at the receiver position in our first six ball games, for whatever reason. Bryan came to me and said, I feel like me going down on the field may calm them down some, between some reps, and do a better job of communicating to them. It’s not that anyone wasn’t doing a good job on the sideline before, but I agreed with him. We got into the situation in the Missouri game when we lost the headsets and he came down and I thought called a really good game. I said, as long as you can see the game and feel comfortable calling it, we’re fine. Pat (Washington) went up (in the booth) and I thought Pat and Dan (Werner) did a really good job of communicating things to Bryan on the sideline. I thought the operation worked well.”
On the play of QB Jake Bentley:
“He made a heck of a throw to Bryan on the big ball down the field, which Bryan (McClendon) drew up at halftime. A gutty play on the two-point play. … He made some nice pulls for some positive (runs).”
On yet another slow start:
“Start slow, I don’t know what the answer is. We’ve exhausted about every measure, as far as how we’ll manage our team. We’ll continue to look for faster ways to start the game. But we finished well. We won the fourth quarter. It was a tie ball game. That’s one of our goals going into every game, winning the fourth quarter and we did that. We did what we had to do to win the game.”
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
