A four-year-old football game still shapes how South Carolina plans to move the ball this fall.
Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer spoke Wednesday at SEC Media Days in Tampa, Fla., about the process that led him to hire Kendal Briles as his new offensive coordinator.
Much of that process traced back to a single afternoon in Fayetteville. The Razorbacks beat South Carolina 44-30 in that 2022 matchup, and Briles called the plays that day as Arkansas’ offensive coordinator.
Arkansas piled up big numbers in that win.
Quarterback KJ Jefferson completed 18 of 21 passes and running back Raheim “Rocket” Sanders added 156 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.
Between the two of them the Hogs stacked up 295 rushing yards and five rushing scores that day.
Briles left TCU this offseason to join Beamer’s staff, and Beamer says the film from that 2022 loss played a real part in the decision.
“I remember what KJ Jefferson and Rocket Sanders did that day, and they were a hard offense to stop,” Beamer said. “Kendal, I knew who he was; I didn’t know him personally going into that day. What he did that day was impressive.
“The way that offense operated, how efficient they were. So, certainly, when I was going through the process of hiring a new offensive coordinator, I went back and I watched that game.”
Arkansas finished that 2022 season as one of the SEC’s best offenses, ranking in the top six in the league and averaging 471.2 total yards per game.
Former Hog helped seal the hire
Sanders didn’t stay in Fayetteville much longer after that breakout performance.
A setback-filled 2023 season under offensive coordinator Dan Enos, who took over play-calling after Briles left, pushed Sanders to transfer to South Carolina.
He responded with a strong senior year for the Gamecocks, rushing for 881 yards and 11 touchdowns.
That history gave Beamer a direct line to someone who’d faced Briles’ offense and later played for him too.
Beamer scalled Sanders during the coordinator search without tipping his hand.
“I didn’t tell him why I was calling; I just [said], ‘Good to talk to you,’ all of that stuff,” Beamer said. “And I said, ‘If I said the name Kendal Briles to you, what would you say?’ And he didn’t hesitate, and he said, ‘Get it done,’ is what Rocket said.
“And I said, ‘Hold up now. Get it done like hire him, or get it done like he can get it done?’ And he goes, ‘Both.’ Knowing how I feel about Rocket and the kind of player he is and the person he is, that said a lot.”
Jefferson ran Briles’ offense at Arkansas from 2021 through 2023 and put up big totals doing it, throwing for at least 2,600 yards and rushing for at least 640 yards in each of his two seasons under Briles.
New quarterback fits the same mold
South Carolina’s current starter shares a similar build and skill set. LaNorris Sellers stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 238 pounds, and the redshirt junior runs and throws much like Jefferson did.
Sellers said the coaching staff has already used Jefferson’s Arkansas tape as a teaching tool.
“Just when we’re installing [the playbook], we see the clips from when they played and practiced, and all that,” Sellers said.
He’s also studied film of Briles’ quarterback at TCU, Josh Hoover. Sellers sounded confident about what it takes to succeed running Briles’ scheme.
“It’s guys that can do both, run it, throw it, have knowledge of the system, and have trust in the guys around them,” Sellers said.
Nyck Harbor, South Carolina’s top returning receiver, says the freedom built into Briles’ playbook stands out most.
“Coach Briles is letting us play free. He’s letting me play free,” Harbor said. “A lot of things I do is off of what I see now. So everybody knows what the TCU offense was and how Coach Briles ran his offense. It’s fast-paced., high octane and exciting. But he just lets us play free.
“And I think that’s just the best thing for us. That’s the best thing for me. When I can run a route off of what I see and not just off a piece of paper then I feel like it’s gonna be really dangerous.”
Arkansas and South Carolina haven’t met since that 2022 game, and this season’s matchup on Nov. 14 in Fayetteville will be their first meeting in five years.
The two schools entered the SEC together in 1992 and played every season through 2013 before their series slowed down. Arkansas holds a 14-10 edge in the all-time series.
Beamer enters the season facing plenty of pressure to win, and he’s staking part of that on the coordinator hire paying off.
“I wanted to go back and watch how they attacked us and what they did, and some of the things they did offensively,” Beamer said. “And watching the tape of that game back in December when I was going through this process of hiring an offensive coordinator, watching the tape of that game on my computer did nothing but reaffirm Kendal was somebody that I wanted to get in our program.”
Key takeaways
- Arkansas’ 44-30 win over South Carolina in 2022 helped convince Shane Beamer to hire Kendal Briles away from TCU
- Rocket Sanders told Beamer to “get it done” when asked about hiring Briles, then rushed for 881 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior for South Carolina
- Arkansas and South Carolina meet Nov. 14 in Fayetteville for their first matchup in five seasons
