USC has talent but needs to find who fits at Buck position

Finding someone who can play the Buck position for the South Carolina football team, that's a little harder than filling other spots.

The coaching staff can recruit player who seem like they fit the profile, mobile edge guys or pass rushing linebackers on the high school level. But the staff really has to get players into the system and see which ones take to it.

"It's not an easy position to play," Gamecocks outside linebackers coach Mike Peterson said. "We're looking for a tough guy, a guy that can do a lot of things.

"We've got a combination of guys and we'll see which guy fits that role."

The group right now includes D.J. Wonnum and Daniel Fennell, but it could have a few new guys joining. Brad Johnson is an obvious choice as an athletic 6-foot-4, 230 pound signee, but Ridge View High School’s Damani Staley and Woodmont’s Davonne Bowen, both primarily defensive ends recruited as linebackers, could be candidates.

The staff worked with all of them in camps, but they still need to be plugged in during practice to find out if they can do it.

“It's even a harder position to recruit because the high school guys, they may be a smaller defensive lineman that can play that position and fit well,” Peterson said. “Or you may be a bigger linebacker that can fit that position.

“Now we've got to get them here and put them in the system and see which ones can excel.”

The team had to go through that a year ago. Fennell was the player the staff talked up all offseason before Darius English ended up in a starting role. Wonnum was a true freshman who’d caught Muschamp’s eye early in August, and he was English’s primary backup.

Peterson said the plan with English was to put him in position to do what he did well, rather than focus on what he couldn’t.

The Buck position asks a pass rusher to play all over. They play standing up, with a hand on the ground, sometimes behind the line like a middle linebacker coming for the quarterback. They even split out wide, pressing up on inside receivers and dropping into short zones.

Wonnum gives the team a solid first option and Fennell could find the consistent role he missed a year ago. But the newcomers offer something intriguing, a potential to take to that role or learn they better fit elsewhere.

“We've got a lot of great linebackers coming,” Peterson said. “But we're going to find which one kind of fits that position best.”

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 10:33 AM with the headline "USC has talent but needs to find who fits at Buck position."