Muschamp was a questionable South Carolina hire, but don’t judge him based on 2016

Check out the advanced-stats glossary here. Below, a unique review of last year’s team, a unit-by-unit breakdown of this year’s roster, the full 2016 schedule with win projections for each game, and more.

We tend to start the death knell too early.

Alabama’s dynasty is over every time the Crimson Tide lose a game (about once per year). Bob Stoops is done in Oklahoma every time he suffers more than two losses (and then pulls off another top-10 finish). A game is over and the rout is on in the first quarter when Team A goes up 14-0 (or when an NBA team goes up 2-0 in the Finals).

Numbers tend to be a little more patient and a little less extreme, and they’re usually right. Proven teams bounce back, proven coaches make strong adjustments, and Alabama wins another national title.

The “usually” is important. Sometimes a program or coach really is just kaput.

South Carolina won 41 games with three top-10 S&P+ finishes in four seasons between 2010-13, so when the Gamecock defense cratered on the way to a 7-6 finish and No. 43 ranking in 2014, I tapped the brakes on the “Steve Spurrier’s done!” talk. The title of last year’s SC preview, in fact, was “Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina is probably in better shape than you think.”

Let’s not overstate the direness. While [2014] was worse than projected, this wasn’t Michigan slipping or Oklahoma State stumbling any further. And while recruiting may have taken some dings, Spurrier signed a top-20 class in February.

There’s no question that it’s a long road back to top-10 finishes, but this is still a top-40 team with top-20 potential. As with East-mates Florida, Tennessee, and Missouri, the Gamecocks’ ceiling in 2015 will be set by newcomers and recent star recruits, and while you never want to rely on newcomers to determine your fate, it can still work.

South Carolina is far from the proven entity I thought I saw a year ago, but the Gamecocks should be better than most of their pre-Spurrier iterations.

Whoops. While Michigan surged to sixth in S&P+ and Oklahoma State bounced back to 33rd, South Carolina completely fell apart.

The offense sank to 65th in Off. S&P+, its worst rating since 2008. The defense cratered to 97th in Def. S&P+, by far its worst ranking in the S&P+ era (2005-15). Overall, South Carolina had never finished outside of the S&P+ top 50 in the previous 10 seasons; in 2015, the Gamecocks were 88th. Spurrier thought he could turn the program back around after a disappointing season. He was incorrect, and so was I.

So now the Gamecocks start over. And they’ve decided to do so with a head coach who is also starting over.

Will Muschamp went just 11-13 in his final two seasons as Florida’s head coach, and while his Gators’ ratings weren’t that bad (33rd in S&P+ in 2013, 29th in 2014) thanks to a dominant defense, their offense was completely devoid of confidence or rhythm, and they had no idea how to execute in close games. After going 4-1 in games decided by one possession in 2012, his Gators went 3-7 in 2013-14.

Ignoring the morbid style -- even when Florida was good, the Gators weren’t aesthetically pleasing in the slightest -- there are two ways to look at Muschamp’s results.

Optimist: In four seasons, UF never ranked worse than 33rd in S&P+. Whether you appreciate the style (and it’s hard to at times), his baseline is pretty high, higher than South Carolina has managed over the last couple of years.

Pessimist: Yeah, but in four years, UF ranked better than 29th only once, and that was with top-10 recruiting. Now he’s at a school that only recruits at a top-25 level. In terms of stars vs. results, he underachieved, and now the caliber of the roster he inherited is lower.

And oh man, is it going to be lower this fall. Attrition was stark and swift. South Carolina still boasts plenty of former four-star recruits but almost no proven entities. The Gamecocks’ only proven runner is a quarterback who might play receiver. The leading returning receiver had 12 catches in 2015. An underachieving line has to replace three two-year starters. And a defense that was only decent at big-play prevention must replace its top two safeties and four of its top six tacklers on the line.

If Muschamp is to succeed in Columbia, it might take a while.

The scariest issue was that this wasn’t some up-and-down team struggling with consistency. There was no up, and there were few downs.

Per S&P+, the Gamecocks only hit even the 70th percentile (the quality of a top-40 team or so) only twice and crossed the 50th percentile (about top-65) only four times. The Gamecocks had a higher floor than Kentucky, laying only one real egg (the 32-point loss to Georgia), but the consistently mediocre performance hinted at an upside that might not have existed.

There was also no development throughout the season.

The full-season ratings backed that up. And to the extent that the offense produced big plays, they came from players who are either no longer in Columbia (WR Pharoh Cooper, RB Shon Carson) or might be moving to a new position (QB Lorenzo Nunez). And on defense, neither efficiency nor explosiveness worked in South Carolina’s favor.

This was a surprisingly bad team. The raw materials might still be there if Muschamp, offensive coordinator Kurt Roper, defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson, etc., perform well.

Quite a few returnees are listed with lower weights than last year; that’s not usually the way that works, so perhaps there is a concerted effort to improve team speed?

Regardless, this is a Year Zero situation to me. We’ll start judging them in 2017. This year is about putting the right pieces in the right places and nothing more. Columbia was the home of one of the ultimate Year Zero experiences when Lou Holtz went 0-11, then took the Gamecocks to back-to-back January 1 bowls. SC isn’t going 0-12, but this could be a tough season.

Spurrier’s scab-picking ways were still in effect last year; after the first quarter, the Gamecocks had a decent offense, and in the second half it was simply good. But the ‘Cocks were dreadful out of the gates -- they came into the game with no idea how they were going to move the ball, and it took them a while to figure it out.

We’ll see if Roper can do any better. The former Florida offensive coordinator was able to coax a little bit of improvement out of the Gators in his lone season (2014), but it wasn’t nearly enough to save Muschamp’s job.

Muschamp has since said that he would still have the Florida job if he had hired Roper from the start. There’s no way to verify that, but it will be interesting to see what Roper can do with a blank slate. He tried a run-heavy approach at UF and probably will in Columbia, too, but two of SC’s top three running backs are gone. He leaned on a bell-cow passing game (Demarcus Robinson, then a sophomore, had more than twice as many targets as anybody else at UF in 2014), but the receiving corps must replace four of its top five targets.

Note: players in bold below are 2016 returnees. Players in italics are questionable with injury/suspension.

South Carolina entered 2015 with no idea who its quarterback would be, then dealt with steady injuries. Connor Mitch began the season on the first string but struggled, then injured his shoulder. Nunez took over, showed exciting upside with his legs, and injured his shoulder.

Former walk-on Perry Orth took over, and while his full-season numbers weren’t all that impressive -- 125.1 passer rating, 55 percent completion rate -- he had some intriguing moments. Against Vanderbilt and Clemson, two of the better defenses he faced, he completed 30 of 56 passes (54 percent) for 491 yards, four touchdowns, two interceptions, and a solid 143.7 passer rating.

For the season, SC graded out 38th in Passing S&P+ and 31st in Passing Downs S&P+, impressive considering the turnover. So maybe there’s some potential, whether Orth ends up the starter, or whether a freshman (Brandon McIlwain, Jake Bentley) ends up beating him out. (It does appear Nunez will be a receiver, which is almost a shame -- he had potential as a dual-threat.)

Of course, a quarterback needs weapons. That could be an issue. Only two returning wideouts had more than five catches last year, and one (Matrick Belton) is a walk-on. There are plenty of former star recruits in the receiving corps -- sophomores Terry Googer and K.C. Crosby, quite a few incoming freshmen -- but none have proven anything yet.

Meanwhile, another former star recruit could feature in the backfield. Junior David Williams was the second-leading running back last year, but he did very little with the carries he got. Both Brandon Wilds and Shon Carson broke a few big plays; Williams did not, and he had the worst efficiency numbers of the bunch. He has two more years to reach his potential, but he hasn’t yet.

The offensive line was a strength of previous good SC offenses, but it struggled in 2015. It had to replace three starters (including All-American A.J. Cann), then struggled to keep a starting five on the field. Only two players started all 12 games, and freshmen and sophomores played a large role in the rotation. The line stats weren’t bad -- 62nd in Adj. Line Yards, 67th in Adj. Sack Rate -- but a) it still marked clear regression from 2014, and b) the rushing stats were boosted by Nunez and two backs who aren’t around anymore.

It could be a similar story this year. Four players return with starting experience, but three starters are gone. There is only one senior in this unit, so whatever SC produces in 2016, it should find more success in 2017. Still, as with the rest of the offense, it might take a little while to figure out a rotation and figure out how to move the ball.

Spurrier didn’t do Muschamp many favors when it came to roster balance. Muschamp inherits two quarterbacks with experience and almost no skill position help. On defense he inherits a ton of experienced linebackers but few linemen. Meanwhile, almost all of last year’s returning production comes from seniors.

Talent matters more, but class and unit balance can help you to get up to speed more quickly. Muschamp and Travaris Robinson will face an awkward situation for two straight years. This year, they have to figure out how to attack with a senior-laden unit that hasn’t been successful in a while. Next year, they will probably have to replace as many as eight or nine starters.

The best-case scenario for this season would be if some younger players forced their way into the rotation. And there are certainly quite a few former four-stars residing in this defense’s underbelly. And if junior linebacker Bryson Allen-Williams were to discover his potential under new guidance, that would be all the better.

Muschamp’s Florida defenses were sticky and aggressive, capable of generating lots of ball pressure without blitzing too much. But at Auburn, with less fully-realized talent, he had to play things a lot more conservatively.

I assume that we’ll end up seeing a bend-don’t-break approach of sorts, if only because -- aside from Allen-Williams and maybe end Darius English -- there’s not a ton of ready-made, high-end attacking talent in the front seven.

That said, there is diversity. Jonathan Walton each had five tackles for loss from the linebacker level, T.J. Holloman is basically a linebacker-sized safety, and both tackles Dante Sawyer and Kelsey Griffin were decent pass rushers for their position. Getting havoc out of this front seven might require creativity and the occasional exotic look, but the raw materials might be decent. If you have a lot of potential weapons and almost no proven ones, you might as well use that to your advantage.

In 2014, SC ranked 71st in Passing S&P+; in 2015, the ‘Cocks fell even further, to 105th. The pass rush improved a hair, but despite decent experience and continuity, the secondary just couldn’t get the job done. After holding North Carolina and Kentucky to a respectable 118.2 passer rating with four interceptions, SC allowed seven opponents a 135 rating or higher (including, most egregiously, Missouri).

So if we’re spinning things positively, there you go: South Carolina could be replacing three of its top five tacklers from a good, valuable secondary. Alas, that is not the case. Isaiah Johnson and T.J. Gurley were decent safety valves -- again, big-play prevention was at least slightly less of an issue for the Gamecocks than down-to-down efficiency -- but they were at least replaceable. So was corner Al Harris Jr.

Of course, being replaceable doesn’t matter if there aren’t replacements. Four-star JUCO Jamarcus King could join the rotation sooner than later, and the clock hasn’t run out for former four-stars like safeties D.J. Smith and Chaz Elder. But there are no sure stars in the back, and it might force Muschamp to keep things conservative defensively.

Special teams was neither a strength nor a weakness for SC in 2015. Landon Ard’s kickoffs were deep and unplayable, and the return game was explosive (kick returns, anyway) but inconsistent. Elliott Fry was automatic inside of 40 yards and 50-50 beyond, and Sean Kelly’s punts were long and occasionally a little too returnable.

Fry, Kelly, and kick returner Rashad Fenton are back, so I would figure another top-60 finish (but not too much better than that without Ard) is likely.

This is going to be an uphill battle. South Carolina faces five games with a less than 30 percent win probability and only two above 64 percent. To get back to a bowl game, then, the Gamecocks would in theory need to win four of the five games between 36 and 64 percent. That might be asking a lot.

S&P+ thinks they’ll come pretty close, but it’s going to require a lot of new play-makers to emerge.

I didn’t love the Muschamp hire, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work. If he learns lessons from the failed Florida experience, and if he figures out how to create a universe in which an offense can actually thrive, then sure.

Spurrier proved you could recruit at a top-20 level and occasionally play at a top-10 level in Columbia. Maybe Muschamp gets there.

We don’t know if Muschamp’s got it in him to succeed as a head coach, especially in a job without top-10 recruiting, but whether he does or not, it’s going to take him a while to get everything in order.