Greg McElroy identifies how Spencer Rattler, South Carolina can show improvement in Week 2

South Carolina, despite picking up a 21-point win against Georgia State to open the season on Saturday, would still have probably liked to see a little more from Oklahoma transfer quarterback Spencer Rattler in his first start for the Gamecocks. The third-year signal caller threw for 227 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions in his debut in Columbia.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy, speaking about Rattler and South Carolina on the Always College Football show, acknowledged that there’s plenty of room for improvement, but noted not all of it is necessarily on Rattler. With an SEC matchup at Arkansas this weekend, McElroy pointed to a number of areas where Rattler and the Gamecocks need to step up if they’re going to win in Fayetteville this Saturday.

“I think he’s going to be a little bit unfairly characterized for how he performed last week,” McElroy said. “Now, fair or unfair, they didn’t look great offensively. They really, for the most part, struggled throughout the course of the game. If you look at Georgia State’s defense and their structure, though, it’s a little bit more justifiable than you may think. The biggest thing about Spencer Rattler is you can’t play quarterback by yourself. Alright? Just so you know. He was sacked three times, it felt like he was constantly evading pressure, felt like he was constantly under duress. It felt like it was a rare occurrence when he actually had a clean pocket. Georgia State was bringing fairly relentless pressure to try kind of mess with an offensive line that has been, for the most part, retooled. And then if you look at what they did on third down, especially, it was — there were a lot of exotics. Just put it this way. It was very, very difficult. South Carolina finished with just 300 yards of total offense and 79 of those yards were rushing yards.”

Shortcomings aside, McElroy did see things he liked that South Carolina will need to build on in the coming weeks. For one, he liked the connection that Rattler had with a couple of his pass catchers and saw a glimpse of what the offense looks like in rhythm.

After an interception on the first series of the second half for the Gamecocks gifted Georgia State possession — which they parlayed into a 14-12 lead over their SEC hosts — Rattler and the offense went on a nine-play, 75-yard drive to score a touchdown and take back the lead, which they did not relinquish.

“Now they did show signs, at some point in the second half — like you look at the second half, the second drive of the second half, it’s like, ‘Alright, if they can be that, South Carolina’s going to be in great shape.’ I also thought that it was a positive to know that Spencer Rattler clearly is going to be on the same page as Antwane Wells, who’s the transfer from James Madison. It appears he’s going to be a go-to guy within this offense. He caught seven passes, a game high. Also Jalen Brooks, four South Carolina, had four catches for 88 yards. So those two guys, clearly on the same page as Spencer Rattler, but the offense really lacked a lot of rhythm. Hopefully that’s something they can get addressed moving forward, and hopefully the offensive line and Spencer Rattler’s chemistry with the offensive line, hopefully they’ll take the next step here in the days and weeks to come. Because they’re going to have to as they enter SEC play,” McElroy said.