JD PicKell: Areas of concern for South Carolina football program

South Carolina football got a big jolt in the first year under head coach Shane Beamer, who led the Gamecocks to a 7-6 record. But On3’s JD PicKell was cautious on The Hard Count when considering how South Carolina might look during 2022, for a few reasons.

PicKell cited three potential issues that could hamstring the Gamecocks this season. First, he noted that South Carolina won a lot of close games (often against lesser teams) in 2021, something that might not be sustainable, and that the Gamecocks got a lot good turnover luck last season that isn’t guaranteed to continue, and how they struggled against the run in 2021, an area that must be improved to compete in the SEC.

“You’ve got to take a step forward,” PicKell said. “Because, you can’t play with your food, in terms of lesser competition. You can’t bank on turnovers. You can play great defense but you can’t bank on turnovers in 2022. And you certainly have to play better against the run. These are all things that South Carolina knows. The ultimate point I’m trying to make here is there were things, again, that broke South Carolina’s way last year that you can’t depend on this year. I’m just saying, luck is fickle and not something you can ultimately train in the offseason.”

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South Carolina also ended up on the winning side of several close games in 2021, games that PicKell thinks should not be close this time around, if only to protect the Gamecocks from dropping contests they shouldn’t. In 2021, South Carolina won close games against East Carolina (won by three), Troy (won by nine) and Vanderbilt (won by three), and PicKell said there has to be progress forward from this.

“We can’t play Troy close. We can’t play East Carolina close,” PicKell said. “They beat Vanderbilt by one. Vanderbilt, also an SEC program. Clark Lea’s got them headed the right direction. I’m a Clark Lea guy. I’m a Clark Lea believer. I think somebody at SEC Media Days actually gave them a vote for first place. I love it. Lets go, ‘Dores. Roll ‘Dores. You’re right down the street from us. But, South Carolina, to sing the same song, third verse, should be able to beat Vanderbilt by more. And so the reason why this is bad news, in my opinion, is because some of these games, like I said, if they break your way one year, you can’t just depend on them to break your way the next year. You need to take steps to beat Vanderbilt by more than one point this upcoming year. It has to be a jump in terms of what they do on the field.”

South Carolina led the SEC in takeaways in 2021, turning over opponents 24 times. And while playing opportunistic defense should be the goal, relying on something with the randomness of turnovers could be a dangerous game, according to PicKell.

“Similar to how I feel about those three games where you play with your food against lesser competition, you can’t really depend on having 24 turnovers,” PicKell said. “Now, it’s a good sign in terms of what you’re able to do on defense and be opportunistic and capitalize when you were supposed to capitalize or able to capitalize. That’s a good thing. But when you’re playing defense hoping you can make a takeaway, or when you’re depending on takeaways, I should say, rather. That’s when you run into trouble. Because takeaways, in some regard — I want to be careful about how I say this — it’s not always exclusively a defensive effort to have takeaways. Some of it was, hey it was a tipped pass off the receivers hands, ball is in the air, it’s our ball. Some of it is hey the receiver ran the wrong route and he threw it to us. Some of it is a bad snap, OK, we’re on the ball. So you see what I’m saying here? Some of this is a two-sided effort in terms of getting takeaways.”

Lastly, PicKell noted that the Gamecocks run defense was simply not good enough last year, and will need to be better in 2022. South Carolina allowed 175 yards a game on the ground, the 94th-ranked rushing defense last year.

“You’ve got to be better. Especially in the SEC. Shane Beamer has said it,” PicKell said. “The great teams in college football, yes, but especially in this conference, win the trenches: Georgia, Alabama, LSU when they’re playing great, Auburn when they were great with Nick Fairley. You’ve got to win the trenches in college football, especially in the SEC. There’s too many freak shows running around there to have a lackluster performance in those trenches. You’ve got to be better. And they’ve done a lot in the portal to try and revamp that, done a lot this offseason trying to revamp that, but you’ve got to take a step forward.”