With two spring games down, Spencer Rattler looks to be at home at South Carolina
Twelve months ago, Spencer Rattler walked off the field at Williams-Brice Stadium in front of a garnet-and-black-clad crowd for the first time. They oohed and aahed at his arm strength. They clamored for autographs along the banisters separating the stands from the locker room tunnel. Everyone wanted a piece of the golden-armed signal-caller charged with resurrecting a dormant South Carolina program under fresh-faced head coach Shane Beamer.
Now? Multiply it all tenfold.
Rattler was mobbed for signatures by kids and adults alike Saturday as he moseyed out of the tunnel in the southeast corner of the stadium in which the Gamecocks have won 10 of their last 14 contests. “Rattler! Rattler!” they yelled, hoping to grab his attention. They did. He signed hats, shirts and towels. All with a smile on his face.
“Just excited to get back and get back to work,” Rattler said after South Carolina’s annual Garnet & Black Spring Game. “I know we’ll have a little break here in the summer, but we’ll all still be working.”
This version of Rattler is noticeably at ease. He wrapped his second spring game as South Carolina’s No. 1 quarterback Saturday, completing 12 of 20 passes for 120 yards and one touchdown. He’s visibly calm, cool and collected. He seems at home.
The Netflix show. The high-profile benching at Oklahoma. That all feels long passed.
South Carolina is Spencer Rattler’s team — and the spring game is just the first data point in 2023.
“He’s much more comfortable, confident,” Beamer said postgame. “Everything was still new for him last year — the city of Columbia, his teammates, being here in the stadium. He hadn’t played a game yet. There was a lot of newness. And now he’s just very, very poised, very confident. ...There’s not a lot that rattles him, pardon the pun.”
South Carolina, for all intents and purposes, will go as Rattler goes this fall. That’s how it worked last year. There’s no real reason to believe 2023 will function any differently.
The games in which Rattler shined last year — Tennessee, Clemson, Kentucky — USC also shined. It’s when he wasn’t his best that the offense spiraled, the run game sputtered and those calls to fire former offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield grew increasingly boisterous.
It’s those glimpses of greatness, though, that have fans diving over bleachers, contorting their bodies at absurd angles across railings and shouting for his attention.
It only takes a brief look at the box scores to see what Rattler is capable of. He was borderline unconscious in the 2022 win over No. 5 Tennessee, setting a school record with six passing touchdowns to four different pass catchers. He shook off miscues in the upset at No. 8 Clemson and in the near-win over Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, combining for 606 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions. That inspires confidence from coaches and fans alike.
Saturday was a mix of both variations of Rattler.
He hit Wells, the SEC’s leading returning receiver, on a 25-yard crossing route in the first quarter to send the crowd leaping out of their seats. Wells did the rest, caroming off a defender and scampering into opposing territory for a 53-yard gain. Fans roared. The explosive plays they enjoyed in bulk against Tennessee — the last time the public attended a football event at Williams-Brice Stadium before this weekend — started to replay in their heads.
Rattler capped off the drive with a flick of the wrist, snapping a three-yard pass to Arkansas transfer Trey Knox, who found a soft spot in the zone, fought off a massive hit from safety DQ Smith and held on for the night’s first touchdown.
He also tried like hell to get Beamer to let him back into the game when it went into overtime — “They shut it down quick,” Rattler quipped — almost an hour after he traded his helmet for a ball cap along the sideline.
“If we were in there, we would’ve ended it quick,” he said.
There were a few of those moments that lead to pause from impartial bystanders. Rattler, albeit behind a mishmash offensive line, overshot Eddie Lewis streaking down the sideline twice. He looped a third pass over the head of Wells, too. Plays he’ll undoubtedly want back.
Those, though, are concerns for the offseason.
“Spencer, he’s a great quarterback, man,” Knox said. “He’s very smart, strong arm and he’s very intentional. He knows what he’s doing. He knows who to look at, what to read, where to place the ball. If I’m coming out of a stick route, (he knows) what shoulder to put it on so that I can avoid the defender. He thinks about all those things.”
Nothing that happened Saturday will matter much for what this South Carolina team is on Sept. 3 when it opens its season against North Carolina in Charlotte. When that time does come, it will almost certainly be Rattler leading the charge out of the tunnel ahead of a top-tier quarterback dual with ex-five-star Drake Maye.
For now, Rattler will take a second to breathe. Perhaps he’ll play some golf. (He just released a new golf clothing line as part of his burgeoning name, image and likeness business.) The offseason might also include time back home in Phoenix, working with his longtime quarterback coach Mike Giovando and throwing routes to Wells, who joined him in Arizona last summer to work out.
It’s no secret this is Rattler’s team again in 2023. The furious groups of fans seeking his attention with each step he took toward the playing surface on Saturday said as much.
Finally, though, Rattler seems comfortable. That in and of itself has been a long time coming.
