Two months ago at SEC Media Days in Nashville, I spent the morning with South Carolina. It was for a behind-the-scenes story on Shane Beamer as he approached Year 3 in Columbia. In every room that he walked into or in front of every media member that he spoke to, Beamer answered at least 1 question about a particular subject.

Spencer Rattler.

That wasn’t a surprise. After all, Rattler had a fitting roller-coaster season at South Carolina in 2022. His 10-game start didn’t exactly rewrite the record books — Beamer insisted there was a lot that Rattler was doing for the program that didn’t show up in the box score — and his 3-game finish was one for the ages. His return for Year 5 of college was one of the top storylines in Nashville.

Who was Rattler? Had he really turned the corner in that 3-game finish? Or would he revert to who he was in those first 10 games with the Gamecocks?

Anyone who spent any time around Beamer or South Carolina players that day would’ve seen exactly what I saw — there couldn’t have been any more confidence that Rattler was that dude.

Like, the dude who made us think he was playing against air the night he torched Tennessee’s Playoff hopes. Like, the dude who went into Clemson and handed the Tigers their first loss in Death Valley in more than 6 years … while also torching their Playoff hopes. Like, the dude who Gamecock fans hoped would become the best quarterback in program history.

Yeah, that dude.

Well, after 4 games of the 2023 season, it’s obvious that South Carolina’s internal optimism about Rattler was justified. If you’ve actually watched him and not stuck with some outdated narrative about who Rattler is as a player and a leader, you watched him play the quarterback position at a level higher than almost anyone in the sport.

Most recently, Rattler completed his first 17 passes to fuel a 37-30 victory against Mississippi State. That improved his 2023 QB rating to 170.9 (only 3 FBS quarterbacks finished with a better mark than that in 2022). Never mind the fact that 3 of Rattler’s first 4 games came vs. Power 5 competition or that his offensive line has looked completely overmatched at times. Oh, and his top target entering the season, Juice Wells, only played 60 snaps this season because of a broken bone in his foot. That injury happened on a play wherein we were reminded of how deadly Wells is in space:

Rattler was 16-for-18 for 152 yards in the first half against the 2-time defending champs in Athens. Outside of perhaps Bryce Young in the 2021 SEC Championship, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better half of quarterback play against Georgia since the start of the 2021 season. As a 4-touchdown underdog, Rattler led South Carolina to an 11-point lead at the break. A year earlier against Georgia in Columbia, he was 13-for-25 for 112 yards, 0 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in a 48-7 loss.

Improvement? Absolutely.

New South Carolina offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains deserves some credit for that. Loggains was considered an out-of-the-box hire as the Arkansas tight ends coach who had never called plays in college. Major endorsements from Gamecock legends Connor Shaw and Alshon Jeffery, as well as Jay Cutler, who all worked with Loggains during his time as the Chicago Bears quarterbacks coach, were a selling point.

So far, so good. The chemistry between QB and OC isn’t lacking.

There was a moment after the Mississippi State win when Loggains ran over to Rattler during his postgame interview on SEC Network. Loggains patted Rattler on the chest and told him “great job” as they dapped each other up. Rattler said “this guy” and pointed at Loggains.

Under Loggains’ tutelage, Rattler’s footwork has taken that next step. As a result, so has his accuracy. The 2022 version of Rattler doesn’t start a game with a 17-for-17 clip. He was a 66% passer last season, but he only averaged 7.6 yards per attempt. At a 74% completion rate through 4 games of 2023, he’s also averaging 9.7 yards/attempt. His 310 passing yards per game rank No. 5 among Power 5 quarterbacks, and among FBS signal-callers with 3 games against P5 competition; only Shedeur Sanders and Jayden Daniels averaged more passing yards per game than Rattler.

The “has he turned the corner” questions from the preseason have been answered. No. 7 in garnet and black is in the midst of the best 7-game stretch of his career. Starting with last year’s game against Tennessee, look at Rattler’s numbers compared to his 7-game stretch to finish the 2020 season at Oklahoma:

Rattler
Last 7 games of 2020
Last 7 games (2022-23)
TD-INT
15-2
17-5
Passing yards/game
263.6
326.6
Completion %
64.9
71.6
Yards/attempt
9.8
9.1
300-yard, 0-INT games
3
3

Average Rattler’s current 7-game streak out throughout a 13-game season and he’d be looking at 4,245 yards and 32 passing touchdowns, both of which would be program records. (South Carolina has never had a QB throw 30 TD passes in a season.) While the bar to exceed was certainly lower at South Carolina than Oklahoma — the Gamecocks haven’t had a quarterback drafted in the 7-round era nor have they had an All-SEC player at the position at season’s end — let’s not dismiss the surroundings.

Remember, Rattler had Lincoln Riley in his ear, Marvin Mims at receiver and Rhamondre Stevenson in the backfield. He had 2 All-Big 12 offensive linemen, and he was up against Big 12 defenses in that 2020 season, when defense collectively in the sport took a massive hit. That’s wildly different than a 7-game stretch for South Carolina against Tennessee, Clemson, Notre Dame, UNC, Furman, Georgia and Mississippi State.

To say that Rattler’s circumstances are different now would be an understatement. With all due respect to the South Carolina offensive line, we can safely rule that group out for the Joe Moore Award after allowing 16 sacks of Rattler in the first 4 games. He’s also working with a first-time college play-caller, a running game that ranks No. 128 in FBS and his top receiver is out.

But incredibly, one wouldn’t know that Rattler’s go-target has been out because of the emergence of Xavier Legette. Not only has Legette gotten off to an All-SEC start, but he also boasts an FBS-best 556 receiving yards. Not too shabby for a guy who entered 2023 with 423 career receiving yards in his previous 4 seasons.

That connection has been money in the bank so far. Rattler targeted Legette 34 times this year, and he caught 27 of them for 20.6 yards per reception.

“Man’s a playmaker,” Rattler said on the SEC Network postgame broadcast after the Mississippi State win. “Throw it short, he’ll take it long. Throw it long, he’ll catch it and take it in. He’s a hell of a player and man … special.”

Through 4 weeks, the Rattler-Legette duo is up there with Jayden Daniels-Malik Nabers and Michael Penix Jr.-Rome Odunze for the top quarterback-receiver connections in the nation.

This might look like a play where Legette does all the heavy lifting — his breakaway speed in the open field reached 22.3 MPH and was the highest-recorded speed of any college player this season — but note how Rattler doesn’t panic with a blitzing linebacker (Mario Anderson did an excellent job in pass protection), he works through his progressions, he reads the defensive end who dropped into coverage and he adjusts his arm angle to make a throw that doesn’t force his receiver to break stride.

That’s scheme, execution and talent on display. It feels like up until this point in Rattler’s career, you could’ve questioned at least one of those elements. No longer is that the case.

And sure, he’s still probably going to take plenty of sacks behind that offensive line, but Rattler said after the Mississippi State win that “they’ve been getting better each week.” Even if they don’t consistently keep Rattler clean and he admittedly causes a few sacks on occasion, his toughness cannot be questioned. He started all 17 games he suited up for at South Carolina. In the past 4, he got a chance to wear the “C” on his jersey.

When Rattler announced that he was running it back for another year at South Carolina instead of parlaying his banner 2022 finish into an improved NFL Draft stock, his teammates voted him a captain. That’s why he made his first appearance at SEC Media Days in 2023 after some (myself included) questioned why he wasn’t a player representative a year earlier. Beamer said that Rattler didn’t feel that he had earned that opportunity yet in the summer of 2022, having never played a game for South Carolina. A little over 14 months later, Rattler is the face of the program.

When he and the Gamecocks were in Nashville at SEC Media Days, there was another thing that Beamer was asked about wherever he spoke — beating Tennessee and Clemson in 2022. The word “momentum” was often part of that question. Beamer acknowledged how monumental it was to close the regular season the way South Carolina did but knew it didn’t guarantee 2023 success.

On Saturday, Rattler will take on the Tennessee squad that he faced at the start of his current 7-game run. His record-setting 6-touchdown, 438-yard performance against the Vols sent shockwaves through college football. Rattler played what was essentially a perfect game at the position. Beamer likened Rattler’s most recent performance — the one with a 17-for-17 start — to a pitcher in the midst of a perfect game.

Rattler might have to play close to perfect for South Carolina to win as a double-digit underdog. Then again, Beamer already won as a double-digit underdog 4 times in his first 2 seasons in Columbia. Two of those well-documented instances were, of course, with Rattler leading the way against Tennessee and Clemson.

Perhaps we should look at Rattler through a different lens now. It should be the approach that Tennessee and all future South Carolina opponents should embrace.

You’re going to have to play perfectly to slow down that dude.