Patrick DiMarco previews upcoming podcast, South Carolina season

Former NFL veteran Patrick DiMarco has seen the South Carolina football program through the prism of being a player, staffer, and now fan.

DiMarco, who emerged as a fan-favorite tight end and fullback during the Steve Spurrier years, is teaming with another Gamecock fan favorite — former quarterback Stephen Garcia — for a weekly podcast about their time in Columbia.

Tailgate Talks, the promo reads, promises laughs, behind-the-scenes insights, and unfiltered access to DiMarco and Garcia plus special guests from USC past and present.

Tailgate Talks premieres on Wednesday, August 14 on Gamecocks+ with new episodes streaming weekly.

DiMarco recently joined the GamecockCentral Takeover on 107.5 The Game to discuss the podcast and to look ahead to this year’s season.

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Q: We’ve been talking plenty about fall camp as we get closer and closer to the start of the season. Give us some perspective on what it’s like to be a player within fall camp.

DiMarco: Hot. It’s obviously playing here in the southeast—South Carolina, Atlanta, growing up in Florida. I mean, just this time of year always gets you excited, but it is definitely hot out there. You dig in through all the spring camp, winter workouts, summer workouts, and finally, it’s the chance to put the pads on and hit somebody. You know the season’s right around the corner, so it’s definitely an exciting time. But man, especially here in Columbia, those camp practices were hot.

Q: Hey Pat, it’s Wes. Appreciate you doing this, man. Tell us everything we need to know about this podcast. When can we hear the first episode? How did it come about? And what do you think you and Stephen’s approach will be in terms of maybe giving the fans a behind-the-scenes look back at y’all’s time at Carolina?

DiMarco: Yes, we’ve recorded two episodes already. We have a couple of really cool guests on those episodes and have much more lined up. But the first episode’s going to air next Wednesday on the 14th, which we’re really excited about. The idea came from realizing that a lot of other schools, especially in the SEC, had former players involved in media content—whether that be podcasts, YouTube, or streaming, and helping out with NIL. I felt like we didn’t have that presence, so I started juggling the idea around, had some conversations, and even leaned on Jamie Bradford a lot about it. He helped spearhead this.

I reached out to Stephen, knowing he’s always entertaining on podcasts, and asked if he’d be interested. He immediately said he’s been thinking about it for a long time too, just didn’t know where to start or who to do it with. So, it felt like a match made in heaven. I’d consider myself the brains and Stephen the beauty, the entertainer. Blend us together, and we have a pretty cool team. During our time here from 2007 to 2011, we had some great experiences, won some big games, and Stephen had some interesting experiences as well, both on and off the field, that we’ll dive into.

We want to highlight former players, guys we played with, those before and after us—give them a platform to share their stories, their memories, and promote what they’re doing now. We’re also going to highlight some current players, have them on as guests to share why they chose Carolina, what they do in their off time, and more. We hope this can help them network and find jobs post-football.

Q: While we got you, let’s talk a little bit about this current roster. How excited are you as a former fullback/tight end about the possibility of an offense that could have Rocket Sanders in the backfield alongside a guy like LaNorris Sellers, who provides that run threat, and maybe go two tight ends and run some Shawn Elliott run scheme? What do you think about the potential of what this offense could be this season from your perspective?

DiMarco: Obviously, it’s a different dynamic not having Spencer Rattler here, a guy that can sling the football with the best of them, but also not taking away anything that LaNorris can do because he showed really good playmaking ability in his small sample size last year. So a lot to be excited about. He’s 6’5″ or 6’6″, 240-250 pounds, and runs like a deer. He brings a different dynamic to the football game. You look at the NFL—Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson—and you see the things you can do running the quarterback and extending plays. That’s a huge threat that LaNorris is going to bring.

I think everybody understands it, there’s going to be young quarterback woes throughout the course of the season but you can eliminate that stuff a lot by having Rocket Sanders in the backfield, being able to hand off the ball 20-25 times a game and average four or five yards a carry and turn the chains over, and get an extra safety in the box, that’ll really open things up for LaNorris. Plus, with his running ability, you have to have an extra hat, you have to account for the quarterback run game, so there’s going to be people down there, so there are going to be big plays available in the pass game as well. Coach Loggains, I’ve known for five or six years now, is really good at developing quarterbacks — you see what he did with Spencer last year. Everything I’ve seen, LaNorris is going to have an awesome year.

Coach Elliott being back here, bringing the run game, I mean what they did at Georgia State, they were one of the most efficient run teams in the country every single year. He understands running the ball. He likes have tight ends on the field and an occasional H-Back/fullback, so I think we’re going to see a lot different of an offense with LaNorris Sellers and you have to adjust the game to what your talent pool can do and this roster is designed to be explosive in many facets, running the ball, passing the ball, quarterback run game, so I think it’s going to be really exciting. I’m fired up.

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Q: Pat, Chris Clark here. Thanks for taking time to do this. I wanted to ask you about the offensive line. It’s an area that has to improve from last season. How much does having really good personnel in the backfield and a mobile quarterback help the offensive line?

DiMarco: You have to have another hat in the box and that’s the big piece to it. If you have a mobile quarterback, you have to account for him. And then in today’s offense with all the shifts, motions, and different things, you’re just adding gaps on the backside.

If you send a tight end to the strongside to go back to the backside cutting off the backside defensive end, you’re adding two gaps. All these different things, the moving parts really confuse the defense. In the run game, it’s about getting one guy out of gap, and if get one guy out of a gap, you have a real chance to get one-on-one with a corner or safety, and then that’s on the running back. Our big thing when we were in Atlanta and Buffalo was we can block all of them and then running back, you’ve got that corner and they’re paying you a decent amount of money to make him miss, so he’s on you. So there should be more opportunities with that with the mobile quarterback and Rocket back there.

With a mobile quarterback, you don’t have to block the backside defensive end on zone reads, which is huge because you’re not having to block a premier pass rusher. I learned a lot from Lonnie Teasley and Shawn Elliott, these two working together, it should be a really cool thing and the run game should really explode for us this year.

Q: Last one for you here. Obviously, last year was 5-7, and Beamer and company preached how that’s not acceptable and want to get back into winning ways. You were on some South Carolina teams that didn’t have records you were thrilled about. What’s the mindset and attitude in the locker room going into a season coming off a year that wasn’t what you wanted it to be?

DiMarco: The big motivation for us during my time here was, my freshmen year e were 6-1 and ranked No. 5 or 6 in the country and we lost our last five. And I had played a little bit as a freshman but not much and I saw leaders step up, take the reins, and the leaders really grabbed the younger guys that they knew were going to be leaders down the road and kind of pass the torch onto them. Offseason sucks when you lose five in a row or you go 5-7 — it’s not fun. And it’s not intended to be fun.

There’s a standard that was set here long before I got here, during my time, and after, that needs to be upheld. Coach Beamer was here during those years, he understands it, that’s why he’s so fired up and ready to get this thing turned around too. I think, with the work the team has put in, from everything I’ve heard and seen, the leaders in place, the Luke Dotys, the Boogie Huntleys, the Tonka Hemingways, the Rocket Sanders, the Josh Simons, the Debo Williams, the Nick and DQs, there’s a lot of pieces in place there and there’s been a lot of football plays. These guys are going to step up and really challenge the younger guys and really elevate the team in total.

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