Spencer Rattler's Second Chance
Spencer Rattler was cast into the wilderness after being replaced by Caleb Williams, now he has another chance to become a star in the NFL
Caleb Williams had the college football world in his grasp. You already know the story: the true freshman quarterback takes over under center halfway through the game with his Oklahoma Sooners on the ropes against the hated Texas Longhorns. He flipped the game on its head, led his team to victory and took over the starting role from there.
The sudden and rapid rise of Williams came at the expense of his predecessor, Spencer Rattler. A five star quarterback who himself entered the year with Heisman hopes. While Williams would become a college football superstar over the course of the fall 2021 season, Rattler would fade into the background.
And then the rumors started to emerge. Rattler was apparently not taking the benching well. Instead of taking the young quarterback under his wing, he began to pout. One person familiar with the matter told Bird’s Eye Football that “finger pointing” became a problem, with Rattler blaming the play of the team around him for his poor performance against the Longhorns that led to his benching.
The perception of him would only get worse. In high school, Rattler featured in the Netflix series QB 1: Beyond the Lights, where the young quarterback comes off as cocky, arrogant and, most importantly, a terrible teammate who was quick to blame his peers. A “finger pointer”, as some might say. Clips from the show began to resurface on social media during the 2021 season, and a narrative was forming. He was a bad person who deserved to be unseated.
The world was against Spencer Rattler. He was the easiest player to hate in college football. Watching him pout on the sidelines as Williams performed heroics for the Sooners became an unexpected source of entertainment.
Both Rattler and Williams ended up entering the transfer portal after the 2021 season. Each ended up at a school called USC, but their paths over the last two years could not have been more different.
While Williams’ USC Trojans — of Southern Californian ilk — owned key prime time slots and discussions on morning ESPN shows. Rattler’s USC Gamecocks — of South Carolina — were a team you didn’t think about much, but may have been on ESPN2 when you went to a dive bar on a Saturday night. You may have caught a few snaps in between conversation, seen Rattler and thought: “I remember that guy”. The Trojans were a staple of the top 25, the Gamecocks were on the receiving end of beatdowns from Georgia and Florida.
Williams won the 2022 Heisman, and was a contender for the award in 2023. He remains one of the most recognizable athletes in America. The quarterback got a glossy GQ photoshoot at the start of last season. Meanwhile, little thought was paid to Rattler after his move to Columbia.
Now the pair of quarterbacks once again make a career defining move at the same time, both entering the 2024 NFL draft. Williams is primed to have his name called first, while Rattler could go anywhere. His name has been largely absent from mock drafts and other draft talk in recent months. It’s almost as if he doesn’t exist, having been forgotten by the media sphere that once propped him up.
But the talent that gave Rattler his name in the first place is still there. He was the top overall quarterback in the 2019 recruiting class for a reason. A five star kid that Lincoln Riley had chosen as the next up in his long line of Heisman winning quarterbacks. While his college career was always going to be poisoned by the events in Norman, a jump to the league allows him a fresh start. Another opportunity to prove that he can live up to the Netflix hype. To prove he can put together a football career of his own, and not just be a footnote in the story of Caleb Williams.
Spencer Rattler has a second chance.
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For a brief moment, on November 22, 2019, Rattler was once again at the center of the college football world.
The Gamecocks hosted the fifth ranked Tennessee Volunteers, a Hendon Hooker led team that had knocked off Alabama earlier in the season. The Vols were 23 point favorites, expecting to cruise to victory in prime time.
Instead, Rattler was the star of the show, putting together a dazzling performance that put him on draft boards once again. The Gamecocks offense dominated. They scored five touchdowns on their first five possessions. Just once did an offensive drive of theirs not conclude in the endzone (two end of half possessions discarded). South Carolina rolled to a 63-38 win, running away from one of America’s best teams in the second half.
“A night that Gamecock fans have waited a long time for, and will savor forever,” Chris Fowler, ESPN’s announcer, said, describing the jubilant scene in Columbia as the second ticked down.
“A night you dream about,” added Kirk Herbstreit.
The offense was carried by the greatest quarterback performance in program history. Rattler completed 30 of 37 passes for 438 yards and six touchdowns. He was perfect that night. He was completing passes with touch downfield, layering passes just out of reach of defensive backs and into the hands of his receivers. He was lasering passes outside of the numbers, showing off his quick release and impressive arm strength. Rattler attacked the Volunteers’ defense at all levels, and they had no response.
It was Rattler at his peak. The talent and potential many saw when he was a high schooler in Phoenix, Arizona was finally coming to fruition.
“It was the most bewildered I've ever been in the press box,” Alan Cole, who covers the Gamecocks for Rivals, told Bird’s Eye Football about the game. “He made every throw, he hit every dime. Every decision was right. I don't even know what else to call it. Just a perfect quarterback performance.”
“One of the most iconic wins in South Carolina football history, because of him.”
Gamecocks fans rushed the field, and Rattler was swarmed. He posed for selfies as iPhones were shoved into his face by the Gamecock faithful hoping to capture the moment. He was king once again.
“If he follows this performance up, with somehow winning next week in Death Valley [against the Clemson Tigers], just that alone, he’ll be remembered,” Herbstreit said during the broadcast.
And that’s just what Rattler did. His undermanned Gamecocks defeated the eighth ranked Tigers 31-30 a week later, knocking off South Carolina’s instate rival. He was not perfect, and two interceptions — including a pick-6 — put his team down early, trailing 23-14 at the half. But a near perfect second half from Rattler led South Carolina to a second straight top ten victory.
Rattler, once forgotten, was back on draft boards. He chose to stick around at South Carolina for another year in 2023, hoping he could carry the momentum he built to close the 2022 season into his junior year.
“He did,” Cole said. The Gamecocks reporter said that Rattler performed well despite a limited team around him. South Carolina’s offensive line was beat up last year, with the team starting eight different offensive line combinations in the first eight games. The quarterback, along with receiver and NFL draft prospect Xavier Legette, were forced to play hero ball on offense for much of the season.
Rattler had a few impressive games, including a clean 353 yard performance on 39 passes against North Carolina in the season opener, and throwing for 313 yards and four touchdowns against Florida.
Kevin Miller, a reporter at FanSided’s Garnet & Cocky, described Rattler’s 3,186 yard, 19 touchdown, season as “one of the best quarterback seasons in school history,” when he declared for the draft.
Where Rattler may have really improved, however, was attitude. The quarterback turned 23 early last season, and seemed to have grown past some of the immaturity of his teenage years.
“I definitely noticed the better qualities for last year,” Cole said. “I felt like he was quicker to say it wasn't anyone else's fault [when things went wrong]. I thought he handled some of the stuff going on in the middle of a disappointing year better than he would have if it happened the year before.
“He didn't blame anybody else for the year where pretty much everything went wrong offensively. And I thought that kind of spoke volumes.”
These changes didn’t translate into many wins. The Gamecocks finished with a 5-7 record, falling from 8-5 a year earlier. Still, though, Rattler leaves Columbia as a Gamecock legend, earning many fans to make up for those he lost in Oklahoma.
If he had left school for the draft in 2022, he may have been a day three, potentially UDFA, guy. His impressive 2023, however, has moved him into potential day 2 territory.
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Opinions of Rattler vary widely among draft analysts. He is a quarterback with significant upside, but also with severe flaws that are hard to overlook.
“He's one of those guys where I feel like if we didn't know anything about him off the field, like we didn't have the clip from [QB 1], I think he would pretty comfortably be at least the top 50 pick if not a first rounder,” Derrik Klassen, a draft analyst with Bleacher Report, told Bird’s Eye Football about the quarterback.
Klassen is higher on Rattler than most analysts. In a story he wrote for the 33rd Team attempting to build the “ideal 2024 NFL draft quarterback prospect”, he noted Rattler’s arm talent as among the best in the class. He specifically cites Rattler’s elasticity and flexibility, the ability to draw power and throw with velocity from any angle. Klassen compares the Gamecock’s arm talent to that of even Patrick Mahomes.
“I can't remember a player who had this kind of velocity, arm flexibility, and ability to throw from all these different platforms, able to throw it as far as he is, with his kind of control and then be completely nothing [in the NFL],” Klassen continued.
The ball comes out of Rattler’s hand like a rocket. His arm strength jumps off of the page and his talent is evident when you watch enough film. If you block out the noise, and forget about whatever happened in Oklahoma, he looks like a guy you would want leading your team.
But there is a lot more to playing quarterback than just having a good arm, though. Mike Tanier, author of Too Deep Zone and one of the more prominent quarterback analysts over the past decade, is totally out on Rattler. In his profile of the quarterback last month he gave him an undraftable grade.
He cites Rattler’s high sack rate as a major red flag. The quarterback was among the most sacked quarterbacks in FBS last year, brought down in the backfield 42 times. While the Gamecocks’ offensive line was bad, Tanier says he could have done more to escape from pressure.
“When you get to super high sack rates for a college prospect it's a bad sign because they have a lot of means to get rid of the ball,” Tanier told Bird’s Eye Football. “They're supposed to be athletic enough to avoid sacks by running. There's usually a quick throw option. There's generally an open target somewhere on the field. The pass rushers they're facing aren't particularly NFL caliber.”
Much of Rattler’s production came on short passes and screens, too, Tanier points out. He threw 120 passes at or behind the line of scrimmage last season, according to data from Too Deep Zone, among the most for draft prospects this year. While you can blame this on the poor offensive line, Tanier says that assuming he would have played better with adequate protection is “giving him credit for something he didn’t do”.
While Rattler is an accurate passer, his decision making is erratic. On film, he puts the ball in harm’s way too often. On many plays he would just chuck the ball at the big bodied Legette and hope for the best. It felt very Brett Favre or even Jameis Winston. He can physically put the ball where he wants to, but is where he wants to put the ball the right place? Sometimes no.
“I appreciate that he's aggressive and he does make some cool throws because of it, but he definitely bleeds into recklessness a little bit too often,” Klassen says.
His athletic profile also raises concerns. He is just 6’0 and ran a 4.95 40-yard dash. Rattler did not test well athletically at the combine, and both Tanier and Klassen noted that many of his big plays at South Carolina came because of his ability to escape pressure and make throws on the move. While he was able to evade many college rushers, he will have a harder time making the same plays against NFL talent.
Klassen sees the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Rams as ideal landing spots for Rattler. In Vegas, he can sit behind Aidan O’Connell or Gardner Minshew to start the season before eventually loading into the main role under center. He would get more leeway in Los Angeles, where he could sit behind Matthew Stafford for multiple years potentially, before being able to take the reins — similar to the Green Bay Packers transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love.
“He needs the right situation. I definitely would not draft him with the idea of him playing week one the NFL in September,” Cole said, continuing that he doesn’t think Rattler will be a franchise quarterback but has potential to become one. “He might be ready to play in 2025.”
“This has been a dream and goal of mine since I was a little kid and cannot wait for the chance to turn my dream into reality,” Rattler said in a social media post announcing that he was heading to the draft.
No matter where he ends up, it’s evident that Rattler got a second lease on life in Columbia. Receding from the spotlight proved good for him. He matured, became a leader in the Gamecocks locker room — he was voted team captain by his teammates — and made an impact on a program that has been adrift for longer than many fans would like to admit.
"These two years have by far been the best times of my football life,” he wrote in the statement. "The relationships made with my teammates, the big wins together, and getting to experience this great city of Columbia and the best fanbase in college football each and every weekend.
“This place meant everything to me.”
I often get sappy about sports — look at this Substack — but there is something almost poetic about Rattler’s journey so far. The kid on top of the world got knocked down a peg, a few of them, even. The man who took him down went on to live a life of glitz and glamor. Of huge NIL deals, Heisman trophies and GQ photoshoots.
And while a lot of people forgot about Rattler, he became something big to a downtrodden program located smack in the middle of South Carolina. Cole told me about the excitement many felt around the program when Rattler arrived. A five star kid who was in a Netflix documentary, coached up by Lincoln Riley himself, had arrived. Stability at quarterback had returned to South Carolina football after years of being unable to find a consistent guy under center.
“Thank you Spencer Rattler. You gave us all you had and we are forever to thee grateful! Wherever you go you will make a huge impact. Can’t wait to witness,” Dawn Staley, head coach of the Gamecocks’ national championship winning women’s basketball team, wrote to Rattler after he declared for the draft.
But the quarterback’s talent has always been for a bigger stage than SEC Network slots and ESPNU. Now Rattler is ready to reenter the spotlight, a second chance to become QB 1, now on the biggest stage of all.