Will Muschamp on Jake Bentley not winning weekly SEC award: ‘It just means more sometimes, depending on what your logo is’
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Jake Bentley had a historically good performance on the road at Clemson on Saturday. If you missed it, the junior Gamecock signal caller torched the Tigers’ defense for 510 passing yards and five touchdowns in South Carolina’s 56-35 loss to the No. 2 team in the nation.
According to his head coach, Will Muschamp, Bentley’s performance was the first time in SEC history that a conference QB threw for 500 yards against a top 5 team.
Pretty impressive. However, according to the SEC, not impressive enough to win SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors — which was an honor split between Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa and Vanderbilt QB Kyle Shurmur. The Crimson Tide QB threw for 324 yards and five touchdowns, he also added a rushing score, which gave him an Alabama single-game record six touchdowns against Auburn. The Commodore QB completed 31 of his 35 passes for 367 yards and three touchdowns against Tennessee to help lead Vandy to a bowl berth.
While those players had impressive performances over the weekend, Muschamp clearly took issue with the SEC’s decision to honor those two players and not Bentley during his Tuesday press conference.
“I do think it’s important, when a young man does some special things, to get recognized for it,” Muschamp said on Tuesday. “He is the first quarterback in Southeastern Conference history to throw for that many yards against a top 5 team and five touchdowns. In the history of the league. Never been done before! That’s pretty impressive, in my opinion.
“I’ve been in this league a long time, I have learned, we have a saying, ‘It just means more.’ It just means more sometimes, depending on what your logo is. Call it like it is. Next question.”
Later in the press conference, Muschamp was asked about the possibility of Bentley leaving school early for the NFL. That’s not a topic the South Carolina coach wished to discuss at this time but did offer up this comment.
“He’s a junior, we play Akron on Saturday,” Muschamp stated. “That’s what we are worried about now.”
South Carolina will finish the regular season at home this Saturday against Akron, looking to win the team’s seventh game of the season.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
