W
Wes Mitchell
Guest
-- The only injury news from practice was that senior defensive tackle J.T. Surratt and redshirt sophomore Cody Waldrop did not practice on Tuesday. While Surratt has a bit of a back issue, defensive line coach Deke Adams said that Surratt would be fine and would likely be back practicing on Wednesday.
While offensive coaches aren't available for comment on Tuesday's, we do know that Waldrop's injury is to his knee and that he was using a crutch when walking off the practice field. I was told that Waldrop actually injured the knee in Saturday's game and didn't realize it at the time. I don't have a timetable yet for Waldrop's return, and while there's some swelling, it's not believed that it's a major knee injury from what I was told. USC generally terms such injuries as a "knee sprain" I believe. We'll get some type of official word from Shawn Elliott tomorrow.
Obviously, the Gamecocks would like to have Waldrop in there as its offensive line seems to have gelled together and played its best game of the season on Saturday. While losing Mike Matulis certainly hurt the group early in the season, the line play Saturday is what many around the program suspected the line was going to be capable of doing this season. As you would expect, Will Sport worked in Waldrop's place during Tuesday's practice.
-- One of the things we've been told behind the scenes this week that was repeated by at least one player (Rico McWilliams) following Tuesday's practice is that the defense has made improvements but has to continue to make more improvements. In that same light, something I noticed when rewatching the Georgia game, and that has been mentioned to me, is that there were several plays where the Gamecocks were ever so close to making a big play, but didn't quite finish the play off.
Some of those involved Todd Gurley and one guy nearly bringing him down for a loss but him finding a way to break through, others involved passes where a Carolina defender was in position (or nearly in position) to make a big play on the ball, but just couldn't quite get to it. The bad side of that, is that close doesn't count, and those plays weren't made. The good side is that players were in position to make them and they know what they did wrong. This defensive unit isn't going to be elite this season (I think it can be by late next season), but there's a sense that it can still get a lot better.
-- Under James Franklin, Vanderbilt was mostly a spread team on offense, but the Commodores have become more of an I-formation/run the football/play-action team due to the Stanford influence that coach Derek Mason has brought with him. Facing Georgia this past week, actually should help the Gamecocks in being prepared for what they'll face from the Commodores this week.
-- Adams said that the staff would continue to play DT Taylor Stallworth and that he played well in his limited snaps on Saturday. Despite Stallworth being a three-star prospect, when the Gamecocks saw Stallworth in person during the recruiting process, they thought he was a no-brainer "take." It appears that evaluation was a strong one.
-- It's standard procedure for the entire defense to have to run in practice whenever one of its members has a bad penalty and the entire defense had to run for Jordan Diggs' personal foul, even though it was clear that Gurley headbutted Bryson Allen-Williams. While I certainly understand the coaches sticking to their regular "punishment," it's hard to get too upset with Diggs. The Gamecocks' linebackers clearly had gotten into Gurley's head (at one point, Skai Moore was laughing in his face) and Diggs simply came to his teammate's aide. You never want to give up 15 yards when you're about to get off the field, but there's something about taking up for a teammate that builds trust and morale -- two things I believe are continuing to grow within this defense.
This post was edited on 9/17 1:57 AM by Wes Mitchell
This post was edited on 9/17 8:15 AM by Brian Shoemaker
While offensive coaches aren't available for comment on Tuesday's, we do know that Waldrop's injury is to his knee and that he was using a crutch when walking off the practice field. I was told that Waldrop actually injured the knee in Saturday's game and didn't realize it at the time. I don't have a timetable yet for Waldrop's return, and while there's some swelling, it's not believed that it's a major knee injury from what I was told. USC generally terms such injuries as a "knee sprain" I believe. We'll get some type of official word from Shawn Elliott tomorrow.
Obviously, the Gamecocks would like to have Waldrop in there as its offensive line seems to have gelled together and played its best game of the season on Saturday. While losing Mike Matulis certainly hurt the group early in the season, the line play Saturday is what many around the program suspected the line was going to be capable of doing this season. As you would expect, Will Sport worked in Waldrop's place during Tuesday's practice.
-- One of the things we've been told behind the scenes this week that was repeated by at least one player (Rico McWilliams) following Tuesday's practice is that the defense has made improvements but has to continue to make more improvements. In that same light, something I noticed when rewatching the Georgia game, and that has been mentioned to me, is that there were several plays where the Gamecocks were ever so close to making a big play, but didn't quite finish the play off.
Some of those involved Todd Gurley and one guy nearly bringing him down for a loss but him finding a way to break through, others involved passes where a Carolina defender was in position (or nearly in position) to make a big play on the ball, but just couldn't quite get to it. The bad side of that, is that close doesn't count, and those plays weren't made. The good side is that players were in position to make them and they know what they did wrong. This defensive unit isn't going to be elite this season (I think it can be by late next season), but there's a sense that it can still get a lot better.
-- Under James Franklin, Vanderbilt was mostly a spread team on offense, but the Commodores have become more of an I-formation/run the football/play-action team due to the Stanford influence that coach Derek Mason has brought with him. Facing Georgia this past week, actually should help the Gamecocks in being prepared for what they'll face from the Commodores this week.
-- Adams said that the staff would continue to play DT Taylor Stallworth and that he played well in his limited snaps on Saturday. Despite Stallworth being a three-star prospect, when the Gamecocks saw Stallworth in person during the recruiting process, they thought he was a no-brainer "take." It appears that evaluation was a strong one.
-- It's standard procedure for the entire defense to have to run in practice whenever one of its members has a bad penalty and the entire defense had to run for Jordan Diggs' personal foul, even though it was clear that Gurley headbutted Bryson Allen-Williams. While I certainly understand the coaches sticking to their regular "punishment," it's hard to get too upset with Diggs. The Gamecocks' linebackers clearly had gotten into Gurley's head (at one point, Skai Moore was laughing in his face) and Diggs simply came to his teammate's aide. You never want to give up 15 yards when you're about to get off the field, but there's something about taking up for a teammate that builds trust and morale -- two things I believe are continuing to grow within this defense.
This post was edited on 9/17 1:57 AM by Wes Mitchell
This post was edited on 9/17 8:15 AM by Brian Shoemaker
