Shula shares how South Carolina could fill void at running back in Citrus Bowl
South Carolina brought Rocket Sanders in to be a stable, productive running back, something the offense hadn’t had in a couple of years. He did just that and gave the Gamecocks a great season with nearly 900 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground.
With Sanders now choosing to focus on the NFL Draft, South Carolina will not have its star running back for the upcoming Citrus Bowl. The team will have to rely on the other running backs in the room to fill the gap. Easier said than done.
Though, the Gamecocks do have some options at the position. After all, one of the big pluses with this year’s team has been depth, which they have plenty of in the backfield. Between veterans Oscar Adaway III and Juju McDowell and youngsters like Jawarn Howell and Matthew Fuller, there’s enough talent to make it work for one game.
“I think it’s a little bit by committee, but also, I’ll leave that a little bit into the hands of Coach (Marquel) Blackwell, our running back coach,” offensive coordinator Mike Shula said, hinting at how the carries might be split up. “He’s got a good feel for that. When you have guys that you feel like can come in and contribute more than one guy, then sometimes you go with the hot hand as well and see how that’s going.”
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Behind Sanders, Adaway has been the next guy up in the room with 63 carries for 226 yards and two touchdowns. Though, he has been a leading man before from his time at North Texas. The same goes for McDowell, who hasn’t had a lot of touches over the last two seasons. He had more opportunities in his first two years at South Carolina.
Howell and Fuller, along with veteran Bradley Dunn, earned a few carries throughout this season. Nothing substantial, though. The good news for Howell and Fuller is that they’ll be able to use their redshirt this season and still play in the bowl game.
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“It’ll be a feel thing,” Shula said. “We’ll talk about it probably more so in between drives as we go and then there might be certain plays that we maybe have one guy do where we would only ask him to do that, not the other guy. So, a little bit of a combination of all those things.”
In some ways, this could be viewed as an opportunity, an audition if you will, for the starting running back job going into 2025. McDowell would be the only one who can’t come back next year since he’s out of eligibility after this game. Adaway has another year while Howell has three and Fuller has four.
While it’s enticing to think about the future, South Carolina’s focus is on the here and now, which includes trying to finish this season with a 10th win. Shula said the biggest thing is that the team focuses in on what they need to do.
“We want everybody out there on game day not thinking, just reacting and playing, knowing their stuff so well,” he said. “All those guys have had obviously a lot more reps. The best way to learn and get better is through experience. We haven’t played games, but these guys have had a lot more opportunity to get reps in practice and hopefully because of that they’ll be better and do a good job on game day.”
