Two things Dowell Loggains wants to eliminate in Gamecocks offense
As the South Carolina Gamecocks kick off spring practice on Tuesday, new offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains wants to make sure his players feel free to grow during the sessions.
“We’re trying to get rid of the fear of failure and the absence of failure. Go make the mistake so we can see you make mistakes and see what you’re good at,” Loggains told 107.5 The Game during the Halftime Show on Monday. “Don’t be afraid to fail at one thing, because you may be better at something else.”
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Loggains met with the offense on Monday morning and laid out the early stages of the progression; USC’s players learning concepts and plays and USC’s staff continuing to better learn its players.
“I told the guys this morning, hey, look, the biggest thing for us, we’re in a teaching phase,” Loggains said. “There’s teaching phase and there’s competitive phase. We’re trying to teach an offense, I’m trying to figure out what everyone does well along with our coaching staff.”
Over time, Loggains hopes to take that starting point and mold and shape it into what USC’s 2023 offense will look like.
“We’re going to figure out what guys do well and hopefully put them in those situations to where the scheme makes them a better player and they can also make the scheme better,” he explained. “We need to do so much learning.”
Loggains spent 17 years at the NFL level prior to moving to the college game as an analyst at Penn State and a position coach at Arkansas.
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He noted that over spring break, he was at home watching all varieties of college football games to continue learning.
“It’s different, it’s creative. You’re trying to find out hash and spacing and all these cool things that exist. In the NFL, the ball’s in the middle of the field the whole time.”
Loggains will be working with returning quarterback Spencer Rattler, who has immense physical talents and finished the 2022 season strong in Columbia. Building up to the next step will be a two-way street of communication for both coach and player.
“There’s also collaboration,” Loggains said. “Hey Spencer, you’ve got to tell me if you’re not comfortable. If you don’t feel good about it, tell us. Confidence is built from demonstrated ability and communication as well.”
There’s one more negative that Loggains wants to get rid of, a metric that he believes will propel the Gamecocks’ offense to the next level.
“That’s simple. I think Coach Beamer’s talked about this a lot. We’ve led the conference two years in a row in turnovers,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out why that’s happening and eliminate it. Last year when we were just even in the turnover ratio, we were 7-1.”
Despite not performing well in that area, South Carolina has won 7 and then 8 games under Shane Beamer in the first two years. Fixing that issue could lead to higher totals in the future.
Said Loggains: “Coach has a plan to win, he knows what it looks like. When you come into a new program, you have to win as you build. We’re not waiting on, hey, it’s going to happen over time. It needs to happen right now. He’s won as he’s building. We need to clean up the turnovers on offense.”
