South Carolina’s kicking battle is still wide open, and now there’s another leg in the fight.
The Gamecocks opened the season without any real separation at place-kicker, and that held through Week 1. Max Kelley got the first shot at field goals against Kent State, while also handling kickoffs, but the chance never came. He did go 3-for-3 on extra points, and Malik Orsan was perfect on his four PATs.
Now Ethan Sanchez is in the mix. The Houston transfer was signed two days before the Kent State game, so he wasn’t eligible to play in that one. Shane Beamer said Tuesday he expects Sanchez to be cleared for Saturday’s home game against Towson, and that he was already out there practicing and kicking with Kelley and Orsan.
“We had a really good day kicking the football,” Beamer said. “Competition brings the best out of everyone, and today was probably our best day kicking that we had.”
Beamer even admitted he tried to manufacture a field-goal chance in the opener just to get his kickers some reps. With South Carolina rolling and the ball in good field position, he told offensive coordinator Kendal Briles to play it like a two-down situation - until the Gamecocks broke loose for a touchdown on the next snap.
“I told (offensive coordinator Kendal Briles), ‘KB, normally I would tell you you got two downs here, but you got one because I want to kick a field goal here and get our kickers some work.' And then we ripped off a freakin’ touchdown run on the very next play,” Beamer said. “When you’re up by that many, you want to play your players, and the only way to put guys in action is to play them.”
The kicking competition isn’t the only injury situation South Carolina is watching. Offensive lineman Jacarrius Peak and edge rusher Dylan Stewart remain long shots for Towson, with Beamer calling both “extremely doubtful.”
Still, there’s been movement. Neither player practiced during the spring, and neither did much during the summer or early in camp. On Tuesday, though, Beamer said both were in full pads and taking contact.
“Optimistic what that injury report is going to say next week when we have to release it before our first SEC game,” he said.
South Carolina also made a change with its captaincy process this year. Instead of waiting until after the season, the Gamecocks named their season captains on Sept. 3, two days before the opener. LaNorris Sellers, Fred “JayR” Johnson, Shawn Murphy, Brady Hunt, Peyton Williams and Gerald Kilgore were the six players who drew the most votes from teammates.
Beamer said the move was intentional. He wanted leadership identified from the start rather than having people talk after the season about a lack of it.
“I told them, I said, I don’t want to, at the end of last season, (have) people talking about, ‘Well, there was - and myself included - that we lacked some leadership. I’m telling you guys right now, you’re being named a captain, so it’s your job to lead,'” Beamer said. “So if people say that we have a lack of leadership, then we don’t talk about the group, we’re talking about the leaders on this team.”
The six captains were the top vote-getters, but they’re not locked in permanently. Beamer said 14 players received at least 10 votes, and he plans to vote again after the season to decide who should be added to the permanent group on the Captain’s Wall at Williams-Brice Stadium.
“My intention right now is after the season, we’ll vote captains again, and if somebody gets more votes that wasn’t named a captain originally, and I feel like they’re worthy of being one of the permanent captains that goes over there on that Captain’s Wall at the stadium, then I’ll add them,” Beamer said. “And if there’s somebody that was voted a captain and at the end of the season he gets considerably less, and he’s obviously done a crap job of leading the team this year, he may not be a captain permanently.”
In Other News...
South Carolina May Have Found A Backfield Weapon Fans Werent Expecting
South Carolinas backfield got an unexpected spark in its Week 1 win over Kent State, and it came from a player who had yet to take an offensive snap in a Gamecocks uniform. Jabree Coleman, the Penn State transfer who redshirted last season, made his collegiate offensive debut look easy, piling up 77 yards on just four carries while finding the end zone twice in a game where the ground attack set the tone.
Coleman said the moment was everything he had hoped for, and he was quick to point to the offensive line for making the night possible. It also fit neatly into a dominant team performance on the ground, with South Carolinas running backs combining for 278 rushing yards and four touchdowns, a reminder that the Gamecocks may already have more depth in the backfield than many expected. [Read more 🡒]
Gamecocks Pass Rush Finally Gets A Very Different Week 2 Test
Kent States passing game last week offered a very different kind of challenge for a pass rush, with Dru DeShields getting the ball out in 2.4 seconds on 23 dropbacks. The Golden Flashes kept things compact, leaning on short passes with an average depth of target of 2.5 yards and only four throws that traveled more than nine yards downfield, the sort of script that can take a defenses sacks out of the equation.
Towson should ask more questions of South Carolina in Week 2, though, because Andrew Indorf has been willing to push the ball deeper and his profile comes with a much higher average depth of target. For a Gamecocks front trying to build on its early work, that creates a different kind of test: less about beating a rapid-fire release and more about staying disciplined when the ball starts traveling farther downfield. [Read more 🡒]
South Carolina Faces An Early Depth Test In First Night Game
South Carolina gets its first night game of the season Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium, and the matchup with Towson arrives with the Gamecocks carrying real momentum from a 57-0 rout of Kent State. They are favored again against a Towson team that is 0-2, but the bigger early-season question for Shane Beamers group is less about the opponent and more about how the roster holds up under another game.
The injury picture adds some intrigue to what should be a comfortable home date. Dylan Stewart and Jacarrius Peak are both doubtful to play, which puts a little more pressure on the depth chart as South Carolina looks to keep its start on track under the lights. Fans who want to follow along will need the streaming option, since the game is set for SEC Network Plus. [Read more 🡒]