Vicari Swain looking to make quick shift to playing cornerback
Flip on South Carolina freshman Vicari Swain‘s high school film and you’ll see clips of him making diving catches as a receiver, huge runs as a punt returner, and then big interceptions in the secondary.
Now at South Carolina, the Carrollton (Ga.) Central graduate is trying to hone in on one thing: playing cornerback.
“Cornerback is so much different from receiver or safety,” Swain told GamecockCentral last week. “High school, I was safety. I never really played corner, but up here, Torrian Gray, he’s getting me right. He’s getting me where I need to be.”
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Gray can also be credited with getting Swain from the Peach State to the Palmetto State.
A four-star prospect by the end of the process, the Gamecocks’ secondary coach prioritized Swain before he was a high-profile recruit and that early attention paid off with a commitment.
Ultimately, the Gamecocks had to hold off Deion Sanders and Colorado to sign Swain, who has an athletic skillset that Gray is excited to mold.
“Absolute stud of an athlete, can make plays on both sides of the ball, offensively and defensively, can run, he’s got some physicality with him,” Gray said. “But now it’s, how quickly can he transition to being a cornerback? Because like I said, he was a wideout a lot. So it’s just seeing how fast we can get this transition to where he can help us.”
Swain, who did not enroll early for spring ball and only went through summer, admits that it’s been a lot but the process has been enhanced by some of his older teammates.
“Having them is kind of like, they’re kind of like my big brothers,” Swain said. “So if I have anything I’m struggling with, what I need help with, I can just go right to Marcellas (Dial) or DQ (Smith), any of them boys, they got me right.”
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If the speedy, athletic freshman can pick up the system quickly, he should have every opportunity to enter the rotation at cornerback where the Gamecocks have the aforementioned Dial and O’Donnell Fortune as projected starters but virtually no experience behind them.
It’s one of the areas of the team that head coach Shane Beamer mentioned prior to camp that he was going to be paying close attention to.
Swain, in the open portions of practice so far, has been working with the third-team at corner.
“It came kind of fast because the day after graduation, I was here, you know what I’m saying? I mean, I came up here, it was so much different than high school. The workouts, just knowing the plays, going through film and studying, it’s a lot more different than it is in high school.”
“The biggest thing is knowing the plays, knowing what I’m supposed to be doing. If I do that, I’ll be straight.”
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