South Carolina defensive lineman to enter transfer portal
South Carolina football defensive tackle Jamaal Whyce is transferring from USC, he announced on Monday morning.
South Carolina defensive lineman to enter transfer portal
- Thread starter Chris Clark
- Start date
I don't know.... Given the depletion of that unit at the conclusion of this season, it's a curious move (he could be primed for playing time next year) and could be a loss. He was a body at least. Or, maybe he has proven to be a bust.... Who knows anymore?
If we can keep our own stars, other very good players should be wanting to join us at every position of opportunity. Whyce won't be the first to leave the Gamecocks this offseason, the question is, "who specifically will be amongst the others?"
Beamer should have earned our trust by now. Up to him not to lose momentum with the solid core he has back for '25, one of which will be a leading Heisman candidate.
I wouldn't say quite a total rebuild. We do return Stewart, who gives you one strong piece to build around. Pair him with another strong DE and I think we are good there.
It does concern me that our pass rush was not much of a factor in the last 3 games or so. It wasn't really much of a factor against Mizzou and it was a total non-factor against Clemson. Makes me wonder once the word got out about our ferocious pass rush if OCs are now able to scheme around it to negate it. Clemson sure did.
I went looking, but couldn't find the chart. Our DL lost 3 starters and several backups. I think we lost all 3 LB's and some backups. I don't recall the DB's as much.
Just going off memory. With likely players going pro (there were 2 or 3) it was a complete rebuild.
Stewart is a good start. ( No NIL jinx please) But he goes from the new kid that no one focused on to the guy that has to carry 3 new starters with him.
We obviously put together this defense, so it's not unheard of. It's just that our defense next year will be all new faces.
People are scheming with our pass rush in mind over anything else. Ageless football philosophy is to run right at a dominant pass rusher. Happened to Deacon Jones, Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, etc. Mizzou did that with all the outside zone. It worked well. That school upstate's plan was to quick pass us to death & it was a very strong plan. Worked a lot. They threw for a good bit of yardage. Notice they never tried to establish a running game with their RB & they did not have hardly any long developing pass routes. The couple of long passes they hit were literally 50/50 balls that were catch & throw. This is why our sack numbers were down against both tiger teams.
I hate to think we are going to end up stuck in a cycle of constantly plugging holes from the portal, but that's the likely reality. Nobody wants a drop-off, so you're looking for guys like Kennard who can come in and start Day 1. That mostly only happens via the portal.
I guess, ideally, we'll rely on the portal to keep things going and that will lead to success which will bolster our recruiting. As our recruiting improves, we can decrease our dependence on the portal.
One thing I noticed is that the Mizzou and Clem QBs are both very good at getting rid of the ball quickly. Many times, a pass rush never even had a chance to get to the QB before the ball was out. We probably had a lot of success earlier in the season against QBs who were not so effective when trying to get the ball away quickly.
Major defensive players "slated" to return:
Stewart
Swain
Collier
Smith
Players "slated" to return that much will be expected of:
Goodwine
Barrett
Davis
Geer
Porter
Thomas
Williams
Johnson
We've got real problems at DT & LB. Will have to have serious portal success there.
Probably no question we'll be an offensive team next year.
Sellers is just so dynamic. Have to be aware, though, that there will be a lot of tape on him going into next season and teams will be scheming for him. He has work to do as a passer.
If we can Harbor can continue to make strides and Mazeo comes on, hopefully we can bring in one or two more receiving threats.
We don't need an all-world D, but it needs to be good enough.
Just be 8th or better in the conference & we'll be cooking with grease.
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