The Feed Pail: Bobo’s no-huddle comments, game times announced, and more

Welcome back to the Feed Pail, recapping what you may have missed this week as you kick back and enjoy a long holiday weekend. With everything going on these days, it’s hard to believe we’re coming up on the (delayed) start of football season, but here we are.

South Carolina OC Mike Bobo breaks the Internet with huddle comments

Well, Gamecock Twitter, anyway.

USC’s new offensive coordinator, in his first season after leaving Colorado State, made waves during a post-practice interview in which he described the Gamecocks’ philosophy and his broader opinions on the current direction of college football offenses.

“I think no-huddle football is very very effective, it stresses the defense, it allows you to sometimes what I call get cheap yards. Where guys don’t get lined up — but to me, football has fundamentally gone downhill because of playing so fast and guys don’t play the way they used to play all the time because of no-huddle in my opinion.”

Given how sluggish South Carolina has historically been even when it’s tried to play with tempo, this comment understandably set fans off. No one wants a repeat of the more mediocre offenses from the Spurrier era, when the offense was seemingly always in danger of taking delay of game penalties. But Bobo continued to explain himself, and the full context of his remarks makes more sense:

“The finer points of blocking have gone down, the finer points of tackling have gone down, the finer points of route running because you’ve got away with so much just by of going fast. We are going to go fast, and we are going to try to get some of those cheap yards and we’re going to try to catch defenses off balance, but at the same time, we’re going huddle and try to execute things to give us an advantage too.”

It’s harder to argue with this, and reassuringly, doesn’t sound like no-huddle concepts are off the table. As the article points out, Bobo’s most recent Rams squad ranked in the top half of the country with plays per game, so I don’t think we have to be terribly worried about him throwing the brakes on.

First batch of game times announced

While the SEC is still approaching the season’s schedule one step at a time, we finally know when four of South Carolina’s games will kick off. The season opener against Tennessee on Sept. 26 in Columbia will be a much-desired night game, kicking off at 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network; Oct. 3’s trip to Florida is a noon start on ESPN; Oct. 17’s home game against Auburn is slated for either 3:30 p.m. or 4 p.m. (with TV to be determined); and the Gamecocks will host Texas A&M at 7:30 p.m. in Columbia on Nov. 7, with the game airing on either SEC Network or ESPN. Still a lot of unknowns, obviously, but at least fans can start making plans.

Jadeveon Clowney signs with Titans

The South Carolina legend entered a surprisingly lengthy free agency period when the Seattle Seahawks decided to move in another direction after he’d spent just one season with the team. The New Orleans Saints and Tennessee Titans were his biggest suitors — although the Cleveland Browns were in the mix as well — with the Titans ultimately emerging victorious. Clowney will rejoin Mike Vrabel, the Titans’ head coach, who was on staff with the Houston Texans during Clowney’s first three NFL seasons. Nice to see him finally scooped up.

South Carolina recruit drawing elite comparisons

If, like most fans, you’re still excited about the Gamecocks landing their highest-rated quarterback recruit ever in Gunner Stockton, here’s a nice read from the Post and Courier that dives deeper into his story, as well as his connections with Connor Shaw and the Bobo family.

Gamecock baseball recruiting is off the races

Speaking of recruiting, while it isn’t exactly surprising to see the Yardcocks putting together another star-studded class, it’s always welcome news. Hopefully this is another step on the road to getting this program back to Omaha.