Everything Mike Shula said about South Carolina's offense heading into Ole Miss

South Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Shula met with the media to examine the offense and preview South Carolina’s upcoming matchup at Ole Miss on Saturday. Kickoff will be at 7 p.m. on ESPN.

Here’s everything Shula had to say.

Was there more collaboration as a staff for the game plan, as opposed to weeks before it?

“No, it’s been the same all year. We’ve been pretty consistent with kind of everything we’ve done all year with the game planning and just with the coaches and with the players.”

What does it look like when you’re working to simplify or have less volume in the playbook at this point in the season?

“We’ve pretty much done the same thing all year. We’ve had the same volume. We have a certain amount of plays per section, you know, first and second down plays. We’ve had a certain amount of plays in that area, third-down plays, we have plays in that area, red zone plays, and then other little situations that come up through the game. We have a certain amount of plays, and it’s been pretty consistent all year. Now, whether or not we call them all, no, but we practice them all.”

As far as overall flow and just how things seem to be going for the offense, were you relatively pleased with how things went on Saturday?

“Yeah, it’s hard to say yes, because we came up short. We had the ball in our hands with two minutes to go, and we came up short. There were some more positive things. To have the lead because of some of those positive things in the fourth quarter made it bittersweet because you want to take it in the fourth quarter and finish a game and play like we know we’re capable of playing. But as you guys have seen, we played a lot of different players and a lot of young players, and you can see the comfort level with some of the guys that have all of a sudden, that are on the field because of the snaps they’ve gotten, maybe in the past few weeks or earlier in the year.”

It seemed like LaNorris Sellers got out on the run a lot more, rolling out to his left, sometimes like sprinting to his right. What went into that this week? And how do you think it went?

“So each week you try to, you know, as you try to attack defenses, sometimes it’s on the edge, sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s different plays. But he’s done a good job. When he’s gotten out of the pocket, he does a really good job of keeping his eyes down the field while he’s out of the pocket. For the most part, he’s done a good job making, you know, we talked about making good decisions, laying it down, whether or not it’s on a scramble or if you’re out of the pocket, or whatever. If it’s not there down the field, find your outlets. Know It. And at worst, as we know, use your legs, and he can make plays with his legs that way too.”

If you have a good performance one week, how realistic is it to replicate that again, considering it might be a completely different defense you’re facing in the next game?

“All these are really good questions. I mean, yes, you have to look at, I think the best way to answer that is, you kind of have to circle back as you evaluate the game on how teams are seeing you. If you can continue with what you know, whatever it is, the success that you have, number one, if you can, obviously, any coordinator would want to, but if not, have certain plays that are off that, that come off, plays that have been successful. There’s a fine line in continuing to run the plays that you’ve run that have had success, and then all of a sudden you run it one more time, and that’s one too many times, and you’re like, ‘Aw.’ You need to have something off it.

“That’s what’s exciting about coaching, game planning, and preparing, is the mental part of it of giving your players the things that they do well, and also doing it in a way where maybe you’re not as predictable, even though you want to continue to make it look like something else, and still run the same plays. Hopefully, we can build on the success that we’ve had, as far as moving the football. Now, we’ve got to get better at getting points on the board, finishing drives, and staying out of the negatives.”

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Seven different players on Saturday caught passes from Sellers. How much of an emphasis is it when you’re kind of coming up with a game plan to try to get as many guys involved, to kind of make a defense have to account for everybody that’s on the field?

“Yeah. I mean, that’s a good question. I think that you have to be careful. I think you do a lot of that during the course of early in the week, as far as trying to get players in position that you think they’re going to make, be kind of the guy that’s going to make the play. But you can’t have your quarterback just like, ‘Hey, throw it to this guy, throw it to that guy, throw it to that. Hey, we’re going to try to get the ball here,’ but because otherwise, he kind of gets locked in on just that player, as far as throwing the football. Meanwhile, you’re forcing the ball and somebody else is open, so the quarterback’s got to be very flexible and obviously make good decisions that whoever’s in that area, that even though we thought all week it was going to be this guy, all of a sudden it could have been that guy. So he’s got to take what he’s learned on the practice field and move on. But it does help when, yes, if someone’s looking at us all of a sudden, like there’s a hit chart, and they’re saying, ‘Oh, they’re only throwing the ball to this guy.’ We need to have variety.”

It felt like one of the best games Sellers has played this season. And then you kind of go look at the stat sheet, and it’s one of the worst in terms of completion percentage. Do you really care about completion percentage? Is that something where there’s kind of a give and take?

“Yeah, I mean, that’s where stats can be misleading there, but they’re also a good frame of reference. Our biggest thing is statistically to win the football game, whatever it takes. But the thing that we look at the most is when we’re grading his decisions. Is this a good decision? Did you make a good decision here? Whether or not it was going to the right guy. I think we’ve said this, you know, hey, is he going to the right guy? Is he getting the ball there on time? Is he getting the ball there accurately? And those are kind of, now, when you put those together, and you kind of do the stats on those, that’s kind of what we look at. Sometimes you’re like, I felt like he completed a lot, and then other times you felt like he didn’t hardly complete any. And you look over there, and he’s like 70 percent. But yeah, good decisions that keep us on the field and stay out of negative plays. And eventually we feel like if he continues to do that throughout the game, we’re going to get points on the board.”

On the strip fumble forced by Alabama on Sellers, what was your takeaway from how that led up to that point, and then the play itself? What did you see just in real time on his run?

“It’s heartbreaking, number one. And then, where I was standing, I saw it come out early too. You’re kind of hoping nobody else saw it. I was getting ready to try to run a play real fast before anybody saw him. But, yeah, he’s such a good runner, and he’s powerful, and he’s hard to bring down. And you’ve got to be careful when they do that, because teams get, they get that too. They’re looking at you, and they’re looking at certain runners, and what they can do if they can’t quite tackle you, that second guy in to try to pull it out and strip it. They’re good at it. Unfortunately, it was at that time, and it was hard. I know how hard it was for him, but every week, he lays it all on the line, and you just kind of keep learning, and, you know, win or loss, you want to learn from it and be better and get better.”

What did you see from the offensive line’s performance this past weekend?

“I think the biggest thing to your point right there. I think there’s a little more comfort level with Shawn (Elliott) and what he’s being asked and what he’s asked them to do. And not that it’s like glaringly different, because we have been doing a lot of good things, just a little different style of what he’s doing. So I think that, and the fact that, again, some of these young players are playing, and they’re just getting used to experience against some really good competition, guys on the defensive line in the SEC are really good players. So I think you saw that, and I think you could see that on the sidelines too, you know, even after drives, and not just after we put points on the board, but other drives too. I just felt like they had a little more confidence, a really good look in their eye, and couldn’t wait to get back out there.”

Going back to that possession, there are obviously a lot of variables that you have to contend with, with the clock and how many timeouts there are, where you’re out on the field, right? What’s sort of the priority there? Is it just getting that first down? What’s the process there?

“You want to kind of get get going, whether or not it’s, you know, you’re down late, or you have a little more time with timeouts there, you just kind of want to get into a rhythm, get that first first down, and then you feel like you can kind of open up a little bit regarding what you want to do. Might still be another run, or might be play action, or might, whatever it is because I think the play before that, we had the snap before that, it was like 2nd and 8, and then we got them to jump offsides, and then I think he got it to 2nd and 3, or maybe, was that maybe 2nd and 9, 2nd and 4, whatever it was. But yeah, I mean, you just kind of want to do that and have a good balance while you have time, so guys aren’t just kind of teeing off on us, and where are you throwing the ball all the time.”

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How would you evaluate your red zone offense, and what do you want to see most improve the rest of the season?

“Yeah, I mean, we’re in it every time we get in there. We’re in it to score, and we’ve got to be better there. I think the biggest thing when you look at red zone offense, on your productivity is just, and it’s consistent with the field, but I think it’s magnified in the red zone as you stay out of the negative plays. If you make first downs in the red zone, your touchdown chances percentage goes way up. So whether or not you’re taking shots to try to get the ball in the end zone on first or second down, or just finding ways to move the ball and get a first down and then continue. You want to have a balance there, but we haven’t been good enough both throwing the ball and running it. So we work hard on it every week, and we’ll continue to do that this week.”

It’s pretty obvious that there’s good chemistry between LaNorris and his brother, given the fact that receivers, when you call a play, the receivers are going to run the route the same play, regardless of who the receiver is. How real of a thing is chemistry between a quarterback and receiver?

“Well, this is my first time having that, so I’m kind of learning. I think there is a comfort level with those two guys. And I think there’s a trust and mutual respect, which is kind of pretty cool to see from brothers. Sometimes you don’t always see that, maybe not at the family dinner table or in the household, but it is pretty cool. And it means that they’re both really good competitors, and football makes sense to both of them. We knew that with LaNorris and just kind of with Pup, you know, just seeing him evolve a little bit here, it’s been neat.”

What do you see so far with Ole Miss on defense? What’s it going to take for you guys to get going on the ground?

“It’s going to be led by our offensive line, but we’ve got to have good balance, and have, whether or not it’s a variety of schemes or schemes that we feel like that we can stick with and kind of repeat. But, yeah, they’re good, they’re stout, and they’re tough for different reasons. You’ll see them, there’s movement up front where they line up in one, and all of a sudden, it’s snapped and they’re doing something different. There’s other times where they just kind of line up there, and they’re just hard to move. So it’s going to be all hands on deck. Just be able to do it differently with kind of what we’ve tried to do all year, different personnel groupings and different formations. Maybe just get them in a situation where, you know, yes, I mean, they’re good, but you know, get them in a situation where, hey, these guys do some good. Their offense is good too, and they’ve got to have to handle different things that we do. That’s kind of our attitude every week.”

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