Players, coaches react to Pup Howard's time at bowl practices
South Carolina’s proverbial quarterback of the 2023 recruiting class has joined the Gamecocks during their bowl preparation for Notre Dame.
Grayson “Pup” Howard was in Columbia for a handful of bowl practices and made the trip down to Jacksonville with the team as well.
“He’s kind of going through an acclimation period right now, just being around the guys so he’s not nervous when spring starts,” defensive coordinator Clayton White said. “He’s just getting used to hearing us in our coach’s voice, which is cool.”
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The four-star linebacker isn’t eligible to play in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, but Shane Beamer said he decided to practice early anyway.
“We gave him the option and he’s a football player, man,” Beamer said. “So he just wanted to come out here and practice.”
Howard looks every bit of his 6-foot-3 inch, 215 frame and has kept his energy high throughout the practices.
He’s behind veterans in Sherrod Greene and Brad Johnson and even learning from younger players like Debo Williams and Stone Blanton.
“The freshman linebacker coming in has pretty good size, Pup,” Greene said. “I like how he’s looking right now. That boy’s strong. We ran a couple of drills together and he kind of manhandled me a little bit. He didn’t realize how strong he was. SEC linebacker right there. For sure.”
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Blanton, a player with massive potential in his own right, said he’s gotten to know Howard more during bowl season and sees a player with similar potential.
“Pup’s a great guy, I knew him a little coming in,” Blanton said. “We texted a little but he’s my roommate now over in the hotel. We got to hang out a little bit. Pup’s a great guy. He’s going to be phenomenal.”
Blanton jokingly added that Howard is a good, and clean roommate.
It may seem like not much could be taken away from practicing for a week or two with the team, but White said he can learn alot about Howard as a player.
“You can obviously get a good feel for his body type and get a good feel for his functional movement skills,” White said.
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Howard won’t get too much teaching on the South Carolina defensive playbook, simply because there’s too much to throw onto him in so little time. White essentially said, he’ll keep limited to the essentials for now.
“Obviously not gonna start the playbook back over and start it at point zero for him,” White said. “He has to pick up on the back end, game 13, and you can kind of get a feel for what’s going to be too much. But that’s the only thing you can really get but for right now. He’s just sitting in the meeting listening, asking a couple questions here and there, and we’ll start him back over in January.”
