South Carolina Gamecocks College Football Pregame Quote, 11/12/2024

“Know it was yesterday, but just want to say Happy Veterans Day to all of our veterans across the USA. So grateful for them and the sacrifices they have made, continue to make, to give us the freedoms we have here in this country. We have a lot of family members of our football team that our veterans or are active military, as well. So grateful for them. God bless them and this country and appreciate all they do for us, as well.

“Really good Missouri team coming in here. I think coach Drinkwitz has done a great job this season. Obviously, they have had some injuries but at the end of the day, they are nationally ranked and are 7-2. They have won 18 out of their last 22 games going back to last season. May not always be pretty but they are finding ways to win. There is something to be said for that. Offensively, obviously, I know they have had some injuries at the quarterback position, but Brady Cook is a fantastic player. Obviously, what he did last season and what he has done this season speaks for itself. Drew Pyne who played the game last week against Oklahoma is somebody I have a lot of respect for. His uncle played for my dad at Virginia Tech and was an All-American. When I first got hired at Oklahoma, the very first recruiting trip that Lincoln Riley sent me on was to go see Drew Pyne at New Canaan, Connecticut. He was our top quarterback that we were recruiting at Oklahoma. Kyler Murray was our quarterback that upcoming season and Drew was the only guy that we had offered a scholarship to that Lincoln was after. He can play. We didn’t get him. Went to Notre Dame and has bounced around a little bit but he is tough, competitive, athletic and can make throws. You see him getting better with experience, as well.

“Two new running backs that have come in through the portal. They both compliment each other well. Offensive line is really talented. They were really talented last year and they have added a transfer from Oklahoma and a transfer from SMU so they are big and athletic on the offensive line. They have arguably the best receiver corps in this conference when you talk about Luther Burden, who will be a top 10 pick in the NFL Draft and Theo Wease who took over that game last week against Oklahoma in the fourth quarter. Theo has been around football for a while. He and I spent two years together at Oklahoma. He has played a lot of football. You add Mookie Cooper and some of those other guys in there, it is a really dangerous and explosive offense.

“Defensively, lost a lot of really good players off last year’s defense. I think five of them got drafted. Three in the first three rounds including a first-round pick. They look the same up front. They are really good on the defensive line. They have size. Brought their one starter back from last season. They have added a starter from Michigan State who is a really good player. Defensive tackle that came in from Florida that is a really good player. Size and athleticism at linebacker. Once again, a really big secondary, as well. Special teams, they have always done a good job. They would tell you that their season changed in a lot of ways last season against Kentucky on a fake punt for a touchdown. I know Eli has talked about the importance of that play. You see Burden back there returning kicks and they have a history of onside kicks and fakes and things like that. Big challenge for us this week. We need to certainly coach and play a lot better than we have against these guys since I have been the head coach. Our guys are excited. Obviously, coming off a great win over Vanderbilt. It is back to work on Sunday, which is what we did. Need to have a great week of practice this week to play a really good, really well coached and really talented Missouri team.”

On once they find out about Missouri’s QB status, does that change preparation

“Not really. They do what they do and it’s line up and run outside zone with the running backs and it is drop back and find ways to get the ball to Burden and Wease. No matter who the quarterback is back there, they are going to do that. Both quarterbacks can run. Pyne had a quarterback run that was a huge play in the Oklahoma game for a first down. Brady Cook, obviously, is a really talented runner, as well. Other than just Cook being a little bit more experienced than Pyne, that would be the only thing. Pyne is a guy that has been around football for a while now. This isn’t his first rodeo. It really doesn’t change anything. For us, it is going to be, we have to figure out a way to slow down this outside zone scheme that they run very well and figure out a way to keep number 3 and 1 in check.”

On if there has been any consistent theme in the past games against Missouri

“I would say they have kicked our butts physically, just to be completely frank. If you go back and look at sack totals, our ability to sack their quarterback and their ability put pressure on our quarterback. You look at rushing yardage plus our ability to stop the run. We have been nowhere near good enough. It is not just o-line, d-line. We haven’t been good enough on both sides of the ball to do the things that we need to do to win the football games. You guys have heard me talk about what we call our plan to win. The six things we have do every single Saturday in order to win football games. If you take those six things and multiply them by three, that is 18 things over the last three years, I went back and looked yesterday, we have lost 15 of those in our three games against Missouri. The only things we have done well to win football games is, one year, we outscored them in the fourth quarter, but it was because we were behind. One year, we had less penalties than they did. One year, we did a decent job of stopping the run in regards to how many yards per carry they had. We have to perform better. We haven’t done a good enough job and give Missouri credit for that. They have been better and a lot of that has been our inability offensively to run the football against these guys.”

On how he talks to his team about handling the positive talk around the program

“Don’t listen to it. It is easier said than done. Let’s be real, last time we got ranked, we didn’t play worth a crap the next week. I would hope that a lot of our guys remember that. ‚Ķ We need to make sure we focus on what is important and what is important is preparing to play a really physical and good Missouri team. We talked about it this morning. We weren’t listening and being motivated by anything before and we shouldn’t be doing it now, as well. Let’s worry about what we can control. I realize that we only have them for fours a day in this building. So everyone on campus, please don’t be patting them on the back and telling them how amazing they are right now. Please don’t be talking about rankings and bowl games and everything else. Let’s talk about Missouri. The other 20 hours they are outside of this building, they have people telling them how great they are. We have a mature group. They are very hungry. Nobody’s goal was to win six games and be in the top 25. We all had higher expectations going into the season. No one else did, I realize that. This group had very high expectations for themselves going into 2024. It is good to see that we have been able to accomplish a lot of things already but there is still a lot more for us to accomplish. We can’t take a step back this week either with not performing and playing well.”

On the perimeter blocking and what the secondary will have to do to limit the Tigers’ offense

“You have to tackle. Burden and Wease, they are going to get their catches. It would be great if I looked at the stat sheet after the game on Saturday night and they didn’t have any catches. Is that realistic? Probably not. What we have to do is do a really good job of tackling. It is really impressive watching those guys. What they do once they catch the ball, the yards after contact. They get the ball to Burden in a lot of different ways whether it be handing the ball off to him on a fourth and one the other night against Oklahoma on a jet sweep or they get in an unbalanced formation, and he is off the ball to the field. They motion him in and motion him out and he runs an out and up for a 50-yard touchdown. They just find different ways to get the ball in his hands. Or get in a bunch set to the boundary against Vanderbilt and run a naked boot and drag him all the way across the field, nobody can run with him and he catches it and runs it in for a touchdown. We have to limit what he does and what Theo does with the ball in their hands after they catch it which is easier said than done. Plus, Wease is a really big receiver, also. He will catch a ball, does a really good job of getting vertical and he is a hard guy to bring down. He is a twitchy, shifty, tall, big, athletic guy. That would be the biggest thing. Let’s limit their catches but when they do catch the ball, make sure we limit what they do yards after the catch and after contact. The perimeter blocking was OK against Vanderbilt. Needs to be better.”

On what has led to the recent rushing success

“I would say it is all the above. Certainly, Rocket and Oscar and Juju all those running backs are good backs and are doing a nice job. I saw some stat this morning that Luke Day gave me about Rocket’s yards after contact last week was the highest in the nation which I believe it. He is breaking tackles and he is a hard guy to bring down. Certainly, you look at who is carrying the ball. Anytime you have a quarterback with the ability to run the football, it is going to make your rushing offense, I don’t want to say necessarily better, but have a chance to be a lot more productive because of the element that brings. Offensive line wise, I think those guys are doing some really good things. You have Josiah and Tree playing at left tackle that are young guys. Cason Henry is doing a nice job as a right tackle. Vershon is an older guy that has been around here longer than I have and the fact that he came in 2020. Kamaar and Trovon and Torricelli at the guard position are really good football players right now. It is a good group. We have been able to stay healthy. Got continuity on there, as well. I would say some schematic things, as well. Give credit to the offensive staff for what they have done from a schematic standpoint whether it be going into the season just some new tweaks in the run game or things that we have added or adjusted during the year, as well. I think we have just continued to get better each week. It’s experience. It’ss scheme. It’s coaching. It’s talent. It’s all the above.”

On Josh Simon’s performance lately and if they try to continue giving him the ball this weekend

“Absolutely. He is playing at a really high level right now. He showed flashes of that last year. He is a guy we probably should have gotten the ball to him more last year. You saw some of the things that he did with the ball in his hands last season. He is just a guy that last year, I think he was, sidekick isn’t the best word, but it was Trey Knox and then Josh was the guy that was working alongside Trey Knox where as Josh has taken over the mentality, mindset, responsibility of that room in so many ways. Doing a nice job in the run game. That is what I like. You guys see the ball in his hands when he has caught it. He is doing some really good things in the run game, as well. Just playing with confidence and he is a weapon in space, as well. It is good to see. Need him to continue to be better and everyone be better around him, as well.”

On Tree Babalade and if they try and get him in for a drive, how it goes at left tackle if Josiah is back

“We will see where he is. We are optimistic on all those guys that weren’t able to finish the Vanderbilt game that we will be able to get those guys back. Optimistic we will get DeAndre Jules back this week, as well. Regardless of Josiah’s health, Tree came in and did some good things and certainly need to keep him rolling. If Josiah is able to play, he is probably not going to be 100 percent and Tree was a starter last year however many games. We have full confidence in him and feel good about both of those guys being in the game. They have both done some really good things for us and proud of Tree and the way he played when he came in last week.”

On if there was something in the bye week that they figured out works well offensively

“I think it is a little bit of everything. You look at the bye week and say, where are we struggling and why? How can we coach it better maybe? You look at what is not working and maybe let’s do a little bit less of this. You look at what’s next? Are there some schematic things that we can do that we are not doing that could help us? We did all that during the bye week. It is a little bit of that, for sure. I think it’s a lot of it just experience. Rocket continuing to get healthier and more in the flow. LaNorris, we have done a little bit more of maybe, not that we didn’t call quarterback runs before, but probably a little bit more of called quarterback runs where there really isn’t a read necessarily. It is, you are going to carry the ball. We have done a little bit of that the last few weeks, as well. I know y’all don’t want to hear it, but it is true. We had a lot of young faces that were playing on our offense early in the season and we knew they would get better. People had the pitchforks out after the Old Dominion game but we had a redshirt freshman quarterback, we had a true freshman left tackle, we had a true freshman wide receiver, we had a true freshman tight end and then a bunch of new transfers around them that weren’t here last year and some that weren’t even here for spring practice. You wanted it to look amazing from the get go but it doesn’t always work that way. I guys just continued to work and get better each week and have done some really good things. You look better statically when you don’t turn the ball over and when you go 9-of-12 on third downs, that allows you to be on the field a lot more and those stats are going to go up when you play more plays, too.”

On if Rocket feels he is close to 100 percent being back to who he was in 2022

“I haven’t necessarily asked him. I imagined if you asked him, he would probably say that he feels like it. He has worked really, really hard to get his body in a position. I know how productive he was in 2022 when he played them out there in Arkansas and the year he had. He looks a lot like that guy to me from my vantage point. Kudos to him just the way he has worked. You guys have heard me say it from January until now, he is in that weight room at 6:15 a.m. just getting extra work and doing exercises to try and strengthen parts of his body and get them in a better position to play. No necessarily weights. Just stretches and mobility exercises and things like that he was in there on his own doing. He was very committed to doing that. He stayed up here in the whole month of May when he didn’t have to when everybody else had gone home except for the offensive linemen, I guess. He has been very convicted and driven to do the things that he needed to do to be a great player and it is good to see him have the success that he is having right now because he has worked really hard for it.”

On balancing signing day coming up and having games left to play

“It is a lot. I probably speak for a lot of coaches when I say that the month of December stinks. It is hard because you have so much going on. Luckily this year, there is going to be postseason play. You have portal. You have high school recruiting. You have getting ready for postseason play. You have the spring semester starting in January or right around the corner, as well. There is a lot that happens in December. Worry about what you can control and what is important right now. To answer your question, yes, I love the early signing because you go ahead, the whole point behind it in my mind or at least in our meetings as head coaches in the SEC. The biggest thing with the early signing period was so those high school kids don’t get messed over, lost in the shuffle, whatever from a portal standpoint. You sign your high school class. They are signed and then the portal opens after that, as well, which I think it great because there is going to be no, David is a really high school quarterback but you are a transfer portal quarterback that just popped into the portal and I am going to sign you and I am going to call David and say, ‘Hey, sorry bud. We can’t take you.’ That doesn’t happen anymore, won’t happen now because of the early signing period. I like that aspect of it. Plus, it will be different for us as coaches because we aren’t allowed on the road in recruiting in the month of December this year which that has never been the case. Normally, you play Clemson. You are around the building all week, the next week and then Friday hits and boom, you are out recruiting. You are at state championship games. You are in homes. Every freshman that is on our team right now, I think I was in their house or high school over a two-week span in December. It was lunch with Mason Love out in Kansas City and then dinner with Dante Reno in the northeast the same day and then home that night. We can’t go on the road recruiting in December this year which will be a little bit odd so there is not going to be a home visit with high school recruits unless I go back and see their family in January or something when they are already here in school. So that will be a little bit different. I do like the early signing period. You get your high school class signed. You know that these guys are coming. They are locked in. You are not chasing them around for three weeks in December. Then, the portal happens and you have a better understanding of what your roster is going to look like in 2025 because you have already signed them. I should have added this to December. Conversations about who is going pro? Who is not going pro? Who is doing this? Who is doing that? You are balancing a lot of balls in December but being able to do the signing period in December but being able to do the signing period early I do like because that is done and then you can focus on 2025 in regards to the portal and then you are really full speed on your class of 2026, guys that are juniors in high school right now.”

On if there has a player, position group, aspect of the team that has pleasantly surprised him to this point

“I knew Kyle Kennard was good. I don’t know if I knew Kyle Kennard was going to be just this good. That is just full disclosure. I watched his tape. He had some really good plays at Georgia Tech, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like you turn on the highlight tape and it is just 20 straight minutes of Kyle Kennard sacking quarterbacks and stuff. There was some good stuff. I remember specifically watching Kyle play against Wake Forest last year and just seeing the explosion, the twitch, the bend, the athleticism, the strength, all the stuff we are seeing right now. I remember seeing that and thinking this guy could be really, really great for us. Then, I remember this past summer. I had a former NFL head coach that I was on the phone with back in July. I was on vacation at the beach and had a former NFL coach that is not a coach right now but I think he probably wants to get back to being in the NFL and he was calling, hey, if I get back in the league next year, let me ask you about some of these guys. He started talking about what he thought a great portal pickup Kyle Kennard was, as well. It got me thinking, he sees the flashes of that, too. Surprised maybe isn’t a great word. It is not a flash, it is dominant every single Saturday. Very much like I was telling Rick with Rocket. Just the way Rocket has worked, Kyle is the same way. He has been on a mission since he got here in January. We give out our student athletes of the week awards, we call them the scholar ballers. He was a scholar baller this week because of what he is doing academically. He has really picked it up this semester and is on track to graduate in December. He has really taken this opportunity that he has at South Carolina and has helped himself so much on and off the field. And his best football is still in front of him. I saw he was named a semifinalist for the Bednarik Award trophy which is awesome. Really happy for him and all these guys. You just look at all these transfers that have come in and what they have been able to do for us and is pretty cool. Torricelli Simpkins coming in from North Carolina Central and he is the SEC offensive lineman of the Week. Rocket or Kyle so all that.”

On if he is seeing LaNorris Sellers change with the increased spotlight or if he really doesn’t change his persona

“I think steady and just doesn’t really change his persona. He is who he is. I think he is very confident. I know he is very confident. He is very poised. He is a competitor as I talked to you guys about before. I really haven’t seen a change in him. I think he is more willing to speak up in some ways. I am on a group text with some of our leaders and seniors and yesterday, the big discussion was uniforms. LaNorris was voicing his displeasure with someone’s uniform choice. I don’t know if he would have voiced his displeasure back in September but he was willing to speak up and say, I don’t like that. Maybe that is part of the experience, I don’t know. As far as what I see, I go to those quarterback meetings pretty much every morning with Dowell and Mike and he is the same guy in there. He is never comfortable but I think he is very more at ease maybe understanding the position. When you are a starting quarterback in the SEC at a place like South Carolina, when you are a home state kid, young man, that is a big responsibility. He was dealing with that certainly in the beginning of the season. I think he has really grown more into that role and has a better handle on things. Not that he didn’t before but just has a better handle on it overall than he did.”

On the transfer class they brought in and if there is something he learned from those guys to take into December

“Bring in good people, for sure, that love football. That want to buy into what we are about here and trust our evaluations. I think it is easy, and I am not talking about any schools specifically. I think a lot of schools, it is easy, oh, Jordan from wherever, Ohio State, just popped in the portal. Let’s go get that guy. He would be a great pickup for us. Get a transfer from a name school, a top five school, Ohio State or whoever it might be. As opposed to really sitting down and evaluating, can this guy really help us? Does he fit what we want? We didn’t have a lot of competition for Carlins Platel coming out of Assumption College a couple of years ago. We didn’t have a lot of competition for Torricelli Simpkins coming out of North Carolina Central. We didn’t have a lot of competition for Demetrius Knight coming out of Charlotte. All three of those guys have or will be playing in the NFL. Speaking of Torricelli and D-Knight because they are her with us now, they are great people. They aren’t coming in here trying to pad their stats and basically rent a program for a year. They came in and have bought into everything that we are about. We trusted our evaluation. We knew they were great people. We knew they had a chance to be really good players. They both love football. It is no different than high school recruiting. When you bring in people that are about the right stuff that are good people, high character young men that love football, love being a part of the team and you trust your evaluation and don’t worry about pushback that, ‘Man, their signing class sucks because they signed this guy from North Carolina Central or Charlotte. What are we doing? Why didn’t we look at these guys from all these Power Four schools. Well, maybe because those Power Four players aren’t as good as players as these guys from the Group of Five and we evaluated them and think that guy is better. Or maybe we brought this guy in from a Power Four school and brought him in for a 24-hour visit and knew pretty quickly he isn’t going to fit what this program is about because he truly does want to come here and rent a football program for a year and make some NIL money and move on. We aren’t about that. I am not saying NIL isn’t a part of it because it is. Making sure that guys are choosing South Carolina for the right reasons. We aren’t perfect. There are some guys that we brought in from the portal that aren’t here anymore and went the other direction and we wish them well. We have been really successful with the portal because of the kind of people we bring in and we trust our evaluations and really don’t care where you came from. It’s, can you help us? That is what those guys have been able to do.”