For the first time in his brief career as an offensive coordinator, Bryan McClendon came up on the short end.
McClendon's first loss in charge of the USC offense came against his alma mater, a program where he also served as an assistant coach and when Mark Richt was let go, B-Mac served as the interim head coach for the Taxslayer Bowl.
In the wake of USC's 41-17 loss to the third-ranked Bulldogs, McClendon was shouldering a lot of the blame, not just for the struggles of the offense but for the final score. USC head coach Will Muschamp says he stopped McClendon in his tracks.
"The first thing (BMac) said when he walked in was, ‘I need to be more hard-headed in the run game. We need to stay more with the run in the second quarter', " Muschamp said.
"Then he started in on the third quarter and I said, ‘Whoa whoa whoa. The defense has got to make a stop.’ I said you can’t start shouldering blame on everything. “You can’t do that as a coordinator. I said it’s a team game and we’ve got to play better on the defensive side of the ball. Now we needed to convert 3rd-and-2 and 3rd-and-1 the first two drives of the second half. So it was a productive conversation. We’ve got to get better. That’s on me.”
The Gamecocks will attempt to get back on track Saturday when they host Marshall in a 7:30 pm contest.
