Run, nay, pass for your life

USC averaged 4.0 yards per play in their 27-6 victory over the Tennessee Volunteers, bringing down their season average to 4.9, good for 93rd in the country. That's not bad, that's terrible. The reason that number is so low is because USC averages 2.84 yards per rushing attempt (good for 110th nationally). Despite breaking the 100-yard barrier in rushing against Tennessee, the Gamecocks averaged a paltry 2.3 yards per rushing attempt.

Through the air, the Garcia / Smelley tandem averaged 7.7 yards per passing attempt to keep the season average at 7.2 yards per passing attempt (47th nationally). With the differential between yards per pass and yards per rush so large, don't you have to wonder if it's time to abandon the running game almost entirely? Presumably, the decision to run the ball at all is a strategic one to keep the opposing defenses "honest", but when we're that bad at running the football are there really very many downs where opponents are committing resources to run defense at the expense of pass defense to begin with? Even if they did completely commit to stopping our passing game, they would have to shave 2.3 yards per pass (32% of our current yards/pass) from our average for this strategy to lead to a break-even result for opposing defenses (7.2 - 4.9 = 2.3), an outcome that I would think to be highly unlikely. It might even be the case that running the ball much less will lead to better results when we do run the football (e.g., the occasional draw or trap play, which we seem to do well).

Despite being terrible at running the football, Spurrier (known for his pass-happy offenses) has called a shockingly run-heavy game this year: the Gamecocks have run the ball 318 times while passing just 288 times (I tried to find a national ranking of run/pass ratio, but I couldn't find anything). Last year, we threw 443 times against 382 rushes while gaining 3.57 yards/rush, a mark .73 yards/rush better than this season. So why my question to Steve Spurrier or little Spurrier or whomever is calling the plays: why not pass more?