Will Muschamp says one Gamecocks playmaker needs to ‘break out’ this fall
In 2018, the South Carolina football team’s passing game thrived with the trio of Deebo Samuel, Bryan Edwards and Shi Smith, each shining in his own way. Then last year, when Samuel graduated, Edwards became a workhorse and Smith’s numbers slipped back a little bit.
Now Edwards is gone, too. The Gamecocks need players beside Smith to step up, but they also need Smith to become that No. 1-type threat.
“He needs to break out,” Muschamp said Tuesday on a radio interview with Mark Packer. “Shi had a great freshman year and I think he’s had good sophomore and junior seasons, and he needs to have a great year for us.”
In the midst of a good deal of disruption in the passing game (true freshman Ryan Hilinski started 11 games), Smith’s catches per game ticked up just a little. But his yards per catch dropped from 15 to 11.4. That took more than 180 yards off his season total.
For his career, he has 108 catches, 1,436 yards and eight touchdowns.
But now Smith, heading into his fourth year as a starter, is the man. He said his role doesn’t change too much, but he does feel “in control” of the offense in some ways.
And he’ll also need some help.
None of the receivers around him are particularly proven. The second-most productive returning receiver is OrTre Smith, who has all of 420 career yards, 326 coming in 2017, his last fully healthy season.
The next most productive receiver career-wise is Josh Vann, who has 289 yards on 37 catches.
“We need to keep OrTre Smith and (Randrecous) Davis healthy,” Muschamp said. “Josh Vann needs to take a step forward going into his junior season. Xavier Legette played for us a lot as a true freshman. He’s a very difficult guy to cover. He’s a really good athlete.
“Dakereon Joyner is a young man that we moved from the quarterback position to the receiver position. … I thought he did some really good things in five days of spring ball.”
Joyner was forced to bounce between receiver and backup signal caller much of last season after Jake Bentley got hurt. He did get some early work in the slot.
Legette spent the end of his high school career at quarterback as well. Davis has only played 19 games in the past four seasons, owing to a range of maladies, while OrTre Smith had a genetic issue with his knee that ended his 2018 season early and lingered into 2019.
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Will Muschamp says one Gamecocks playmaker needs to ‘break out’ this fall."
