A few missing faces, a lineman in a back’s number, more USC practice observations
The South Carolina football program opened the start of its fourth spring practice to the media Tuesday morning. It was the first open padded practice of the spring.
Weather kept Will Muschamp’s team indoors and much of the work was special teams and fundamentals.
A few observations:
▪ We didn’t see much in the way of quarterback work, though there was an interesting drill when QBs kind of tiptoed up toward a target and then launched hard, short throws. It was only the second period, and freshman Luke Doty was still warming up after he spent part of the first period holding for field goals.
After that, the passers went into under-center handoff drills, something they almost never had to do last season.
▪ On the topic of those drills, South Carolina’s top returning rusher Kevin Harris was not part of practice Tuesday. The running back order in those drills was Deshaun Fenwick, Marshawn Lloyd and the walk-on Slade Carroll, usually followed by walk-on Zachariah Doe.
▪ The group of missing players was a bit more expansive than the previous week. Starting safety R.J. Roderick and wide receiver OrTre Smith were not with the bulk of the team but were working out in the sand pit with injured players. Linebacker Jahmar Brown, defensive linemen Kingsley Enagbare and M.J. Webb were not spotted.
▪ One interesting change was walk-on early enrollee offensive lineman Chuck Strickland wearing No. 34 instead of his usual 66. The 6-foot-1, 260-pounder was also catching balls with the running backs at one point, suggesting he could be a fullback candidate.
▪ Myrtle Beach coach Mickey Wilson, Doty’s high school coach, and Spring Valley High School coach Robin Bacon were both on the sideline.
▪ Former Gamecock Rico Dowdle was in the building, wearing some of his NFL Combine gear.
▪ It was notable to see wide receiver-turned tight end Keveon Mullins going full out at his new position, blocking on the edge with the field goal team.
▪ We got to watch new assistant Rod Wilson work closely with linebackers and then other defensive groups during a fundamentals circuit. It was interesting watching Muschamp over his shoulder, saying a few things here and there and even hopping up a little when a set defenders popped up tackling bags.
▪ Walk-on linebacker Darryle Ware appeared to be getting a decent bit of work. He appeared to be working at strongside linebacker. He turned down several scholarship offers to join the Gamecocks.
▪ During special teams work, there’s usually a cluster of bigger defensive linemen that are uninvolved and working on the side. Today, that group was: Zacch Pickens, Joseph Anderson, Devontae Davis, Rick Sandidge and walk-on John Kanaan, a former offensive lineman and tight end.
▪ One of the drills defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson was running appeared to be a drill for punt gunners, where they came out on the edge, went about 10 to 15 yards and leveled a tackling bag. Some of the players in that mix were: Cam Smith, Darius Rush (he did it last year), Tyquan Johnson, Jaycee horn, Xavier Legette. Robinson also added a little something to the drill by racing in and “fair catching” to force his players to pull up.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 9:51 AM with the headline "A few missing faces, a lineman in a back’s number, more USC practice observations."
