Everything Mike Shula said ahead of South Carolina opener against Virginia Tech

South Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Shula spoke with the media Thursday afternoon ahead of the Gamecock’s season opener against Virginia Tech in the Aflac Kickoff Game in Atlanta, GA.

Here is everything he had to say:

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Being a coordinator, how many plays do you prefer to script for the beginning of a game?

“Yeah so, (I’ve) done it a few different ways over the years and learned from a few different play callers. I think there’s some, you know, that were hard on the first plays, whereas other guys were in general and some were in-between. So yeah we’ll look at it. A couple things are things we like to start the game with and then there’s other calls, and I’m probably speaking for every coordinator, ‘Hey, we got to get these plays called in this game at some point.’

So kind of somewhere in the middle of all those. But, we’re going up against a good defense and they’re doing some things that we think we know they’re going to do, but, obviously, first game of the year, new coordinator and all that so we have to be ready for a lot of stuff and be flexible in that regard.”

Who were some of those coaches you learned from as a younger guy?

“I can just kind of go back from my whole career, like Ray Perkins was my college coach, who was also our play caller in Tampa Bay when I went to coach with him there. I actually worked on the defensive side when i was with the dolphins with my dad. Ron Turner, the offensive coordinator with the Bears, his brother Norv Turner, Chan Gailey, Dirk Koetter. All those guys had their own little way of getting to the same point. Hopefully I can learn from all those guys and apply that. Pat Shurmur too, Sorry Pat.”

You mentioned your dad. Just kind of curious, when you think back to your time growing up with him and working with him. What sort of sticks with you about how he approached this time of year heading into week one?

“Oh, yeah, my dad was awesome for so many reasons. Because he was my dad number one, but just had such great perspective, and, you know, talked about always kind of moving forward and learning from the past, and can’t change the past and be better because of the past, surround yourself with good people.

Have confidence in what you’re doing because because of the way you prepared, and just kind of believing in yourself and those guys around I think those are the things that kind of stuck with me through the years. I’ve also heard that from some other coaches too, and It’s not it’s not going to easy to be able to handle all the ups and downs, handle the what ifs, and kind of be the same guy every day.

With Rahsul (Faison) back in the room now, being clear to play what does that do for your offense? And how do you kind of approach getting him carries, and also trying to make sure you guys
get together running backs carries?

“Yeah, so we were kind of, you know, as you guys asked all along, we were kind of preparing like he was going to be here, and we’re thrilled that he is. And like I said, I’ll you know Coach (Marquel) Blackwell he does a really good job. He’s got a good feel for all those guys. You know, we’ll have certain things that will potentially have up for certain guys. But, you know, the other thought process is, we get a guy in there and, you know, if he’s on a roll, stay on it. You know, stay on the roll with him.

We’ve got to do a good job of being balanced, whether or not it’s, you know, who’s in the game as a half back, as far as what they’re doing, but we have to be balanced as an offense, you know, as far as running, throwing it, all that kind of stuff. You know, it’s cliche like, but you really want to, you know, it’s the opposite of defense. You want to stay out of long yardage situations. You want to be able to make first downs on first and second down. And you need to have the ability to do that with all kinds of personnel groupings on the field.

What was the competition like on the interior of the offensive line this fall? And do you know the five you’re going to go out on Sunday with?

“Yeah, I mean, like, Coach (Shane Beamer) said he’ll announce all the depth chart, but, yeah, I feel like, and I might have said this couple weeks ago, especially the last few weeks, the group that’s come together, and I’m not just saying that the five that are going to be out there to start the game, you know, those first two groups that we have, we feel comfortable with, and Lonnie (Teasley) has done a great job of having guys not just learn one position, but be able to learn a couple positions, whether or not it’s from right guard to left guard or potentially right guard and center or both tackles. Because if you do that, and you have flexibility in that regard, that can really help you out. In case there’s guys that, chin strap goes and you can’t fix the chin strap for a whole game or something, you got another guy to come in there and play.”

With Virginia Tech’s defense. What have you learned about those guys and having some new faces there from a player standpoint and coaching standpoint?

“Yeah. So I mean, it’s going to be kind of like most teams, you guys know better than I do, there’s going to be a lot of personnel changes. We have to be able to kind of figure out that how that whole thing unfolds in front of us.

We might think it’s going to be one way going into the game, but it might be different. But the one thing we do know with this, with this group, is these guys get after it. They’re fast in football, they’re aggressive, they’re coached that way, and they don’t shy away from anything. So we have to be ready for a lot of stuff, but we also have to feel confident about what we’re doing, and not necessarily, yes we got to know what’s in front of us, but we need to make sure that we’re taking care of our own business first.”

What stood out to you about Shedrick Sarratt and how he’s performed? Would you feel pretty good about me going out there on Sunday?

“Yeah, he’s he’s one of a few freshmen that have done a really good job in training camp since they’ve been here, and practice hard and pick things up. You know, I think almost you have to be careful when you’re in my shoes, or anybody in our staff, just sometimes these guys are like, they do some really good things, and you have a tendency because of the way they’re progressing, that you think that they’re really more experienced than they are, so you have to kind of keep that in mind. But it’s been encouraging, and he’s done a nice job.”

Shane said yesterday that there’s a chance that all six, I believe, in those special receivers, might get a little bit of playing time on Sunday. For you with those guys on top of everybody else that’s already been in the room. Does it make it easier or harder for your game planning in terms of knowing that there’s going to be so many going to be so many bodies out there that might get rotated in?

“It helps more so than anything. And you know, every now and then, obviously you want to kind of get with a group and stay with it. But I think the having some young guys come in, with the eagerness, with the attention to detail, and the focus that these guys have, and I think going back to Shed he kind of falls into that category at the offensive line. I think those are what you want to see as a coach from your young guys and really from all your players, but especially young guys. It provides us a little bit of flexibility in that position.

Again, it’s just kind of like we’re trying to see what they’re doing. We’ve got a lot of new guys here that haven’t played a snap of college football, or with our football team, and I think Shane has probably talked about that as well. So again, just dial in ourselves, and our job is to put guys in positions to do what they do best. Once we get them in their positions, hopefully they get out there and succeed.”

When a game’s finished and someone hands you a stat sheet, what’s the first thing you look at?

W or L. I kind of know that already though. You know, I don’t look at a lot of stats, they’re a lot of indicators. The number one thing we talk to our quarterbacks is a scoreboard. You know, as you guys know, they’re all kind of indicators. How many times, not just stats, but like, okay, rushing yards, passing yards, time of position, you know, all those things that show up in that stat line the team stats.

I’ll look at like, ‘Okay, where were we on the pass overall? Were we balanced?’ And then, you know, what was our efficiency, not necessarily average, but efficiency when we were running the ball, or efficiency when we’re throwing the ball. You know, third downs the best teams every year usually in the SEC or the NFL, are going to have really good third down percentage. But even better than that, you want to have fewer third downs if you can do that. So, things like that that we can look at and use as barometers for our coaching next week.

I guess it’s kind of a general question, but what are some of the final coaching points that you have?

“Yeah, I mean, just kind of like everybody on offense, just have confidence because of the way you prepare. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low, and communicate. You know, you and the center are the only ones that are going to touch the ball on every play, so. You have to communicate with the offensive line, you have to communicate with in the huddle, out of the huddle. You got to communicate in-between series and then trust what you’ve been asked to do, and trust yourself.”

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