With spring practice finished, USC coaches have something to tell each Gamecock
South Carolina’s midyear players got their first taste of college practice through March.
This week, they’ll get a taste of another aspect of being a college football player.
Following spring practice, Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp and his staff meet with every player. They assess, look forward and turn from an intense March of work toward the stretch of offseason that lasts just longer than 120 days.
“We’ll start the exit meetings next week with our team and just talking in terms with them, and I mean everybody on the team, go through what we’ve discussed as a staff from a coordinator standpoint, from a position coach standpoint and from my standpoint, what they all need to do to improve,” Muschamp said at a Spurs Up Tour stop last week.
The Gamecocks football is in a bit of a valley in terms of the schedule. After spring ball wrapped, they have a month before finals set in. The staff liked that gap because it gave players a few weeks of lifting to launch them into summer, rather than immediately breaking after spring.
Finals and graduation run through May 12, and the school’s “Maymester” starts the 14th. That’s often an optional part of the calendar, but last year, about half the team stayed around Columbia to get in more work.
It’s not yet clear how many players will stay around this year, but the group could draw from the 13 early enrollees. Of that group, 11 got serious work in the spring. Muschamp has spoken highly of a few of them, noting some will almost assuredly play in 2018.
And this week, as they’re told what they need to improve, they’ll have a little better sense of what it takes.
“The midyear guys are going to be very pleased when we get into fall camp why they came here now,” Muschamp said. “Now they understand a little bit more about strain, a little bit more about the installation, the scheme, the things we’re trying to do. So it’s going to be very beneficial for them in August.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2018 at 6:20 PM with the headline "With spring practice finished, USC coaches have something to tell each Gamecock."