Next man up: He’s trying to fill hole left by injury to Bryson Allen-Williams

South Carolina linebacker Daniel Fennell wasn’t as focused on the sack.

Sure, it was the first of his career, a sign of an expanded role after a false start of sorts to open his career. But he was more focused on a chance at another, where Louisiana Tech quarterback J’Mar Smith slipped his grasp.

“That’s never going to hurt to get sacks,” Fennell said. “I wish I would have made the other one.”

If Saturday was a chance to flex in that expanded role, the rest of the season could well be a larger opportunity.

South Carolina’s defense is built on versatile players who can play a couple spots. Two of their defensive ends can kick inside to tackle. Their starting Buck (D.J. Wonnum) can chip in at end. Both of their safeties have background at corner, and nickel Jamyest Williams can spend time as a deep middle safety.

Linebacker Bryson Allen-Williams was the purest distillation of that. He was an outside linebacker who could stick with receivers in the flat but also slide over to Buck in the team’s 3-3-5 nickel package. He did it a lot.

But now he’s out for the season, and Fennell is the next guy coming in.

“He’s been backing Bryson up as Sam, for the most part,” Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp said. “I thought he did a really nice job (against Louisiana Tech). He set the edge on a couple runs really well and came free on several rushes on a pass-rush game they had come up with in the game plan.”

Fennell’s work at linebacker was something that for the most part went under the radar, which is tied up with the way his 2016 played out.

He’d been a linebacker and pass rusher though his younger days and high school, and started his USC career at linebacker. When Muschamp’s staff arrived, he was moved to the Buck end spot, and he left spring practice No. 1 on the depth chart.

But it didn’t last.

Wonnum came on and Darius English fought off hip issues better than expected. That pair took the top two Buck spots, and Fennell didn’t play the season’s final seven games.

“The start of this season, I’m a whole lot less green to it,” Fennell said. “I made my mistakes last year, and this year I’ve been able to learn off of it.”

In the coming week, he’ll likely mostly be at Buck, as Texas A&M’s wide-open spread means USC will probably be in nickel the whole time. But a week later, Arkansas’ power schemes means much more work at linebacker.

Fennell credited his position coach, Mike Peterson, with preparing him to face the Bulldogs and going forward. Fennell said he got the sense Sunday before the Louisiana Tech game he’d have to step in for Allen-Williams.

“When they threw me in at Sam, he would say, ‘This is how you do that, this, that and the third,’ ” Fennell said. “He’ll really coach me up, and I really appreciate that.”

Now Fennell has the opportunity he missed on last year. He’s a top player at one of the linebacker spots, and an option to augment the rush in passing situations. The Gamecocks staff found a few ways to use him last week, and he made his presence felt.

He opened this season as a Buck, at least to the outside world, but now he’ll hold down two spots, trying to step into the breach left by unfortunate circumstances for a senior leader.

“I love it,” Fennell said. “I like both those positions. I played both those all my life, throughout high school. So I was comfortable with it.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2017 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Next man up: He’s trying to fill hole left by injury to Bryson Allen-Williams."