South Carolina offense stagnant in scrimmage

COLUMBIA — Following South Carolina's final full-scale scrimmage of preseason camp, Steve Spurrier had to remind himself of the K-I-S-S principle for his summer offense.

Keep it simple, Steve.

Evidently, the Gamecocks were putting too many men in motion and it caused confusion during the closed, 90-play workout at Williams-Brice Stadium. It led to a relatively stagnant day for USC's offense, which mustered just one touchdown until late when it ran an overtime drill against the defense from the 25-yard line.

Senior Ryan Succop kicked four field goals — from 42, 41, 47 and 27 yards.

"The offense struggled," Spurrier said. "We'll condense the offense down. Usually you're adding this time of year, but we're condensing. We're doing too much, got too many guys shifting and going in motion and all that kind of stuff. It looks neat on the board, but that (play) clock runs down real fast."

Spurrier said the team needs "a little shifting and a little audibling," but not too much of either.

Despite the overall displeasure with the offense (and pleasure with the defense), Spurrier wasn't specifically down on his quarterbacks, starter Tommy Beecher included.

"They weren't too, too bad," Spurrier said. "Chris Smelley made a couple of good throws, Tommy made a couple of good ones here and there. We didn't sustain many drives at all. But they did pretty good."

Beecher has been hit and miss in these scrimmage situations. Saturday, he was 9-for-14 for 89 yards with no scores or interceptions. Wednesday night, in a scrimmage with the younger players, he hit just 15 of 30 passes and was intercepted by Chris Hail for a long touchdown return.

In the scrimmage preceding that, though, Beecher completed 9 of 13 passes and had two touchdowns.

Beecher said Wednesday's so-so outing served as something to jar him, considering the rest of camp had gone relatively well. None of the other quarterbacks stood out, either. Smelley hit on 5 of 10 passes.

"Mistakes were definitely made. But I've learned from them. I've forgotten that scrimmage," said Beecher, a fourth-year junior. "Coach Reaves and coach Spurrier were telling us that was probably the best thing that could've happened for us. The quarterbacks have felt like they were playing pretty well this whole fall camp. It shows there's a lot of work to be done."

Wednesday, Spurrier was on Beecher for holding onto the ball too long and failing to make decisions in a timely manner. He was sacked a couple of times and harassed on several occasions.

That said, Spurrier also credited the second-team defense for covering the USC receivers "like a blanket."

Saturday, Spurrier saw improvement.

"Yeah, he was better today," Spurrier said. "He threw some good balls. He didn't run around too much. He was better today."

Spurrier said Beecher will get another game-like opportunity Tuesday evening in USC's final scrimmage before the fast- approaching Aug. 28 opener against North Carolina State.

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com and check out the new South Carolina blog at charleston.net/blogs/gamecocks.