A different look, more observations from South Carolina’s Thursday practice

South Carolina football opened the first three periods to media Thursday for the final time this August preseason. A few observations from the padded practice.

▪ USC broke out the white helmets this morning. We’d not seen that in open practice thus far.

▪ A few notable faces appeared to not be there in R.J. Roderick and Randrecous Davis.

▪ NFL teams represented included the Rams, Cardinals and Dolphins. The group included Miami executive vice president of football operations and former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum, who was watching the Gamecocks defensive line work.

▪ An interesting twist on defensive line drill was walk-on quarterback Darius Douglas delivering the cadence to try to draw linemen offsides. Players had to watch the ball, which an assistant was moving to simulate a snap (one not matching what the QB was doing).

Douglas has been a jack-of-all-trades behind the scenes, as he’s also chipped in as a practice running back in Oklahoma drills.

▪ At one point, defensive lineman Josh Belk was off to the side, getting talked to by an assistant strength coach.

▪ During one part of punt return work, Nick Harvey, Bryan Edwards and Josh Vann were the primary returners.

▪ During the second three periods the defense was working on what looked to be fundamentals of beating blocks. It was interesting watching the defensive line go through some rip-down drills, as they were just throwing around the heavy metal sled. Other players were working on handling collision as a defender who has to stay square to the line and deal with pullers.

▪ The offense spent part of the third open period working on the finer points of zone read handoffs and then transitioned to speed option pitches.

▪ Players in yellow included Ben Asbury, Danny Gordon, Rosendo Louis, Eldridge Thompson (in pads after being out of them Wednesday), J.T. Ibe, Jaylin Dickerson, Chavis Dawkins (with his leg up on a scooter), Chad Terrell.

This story was originally published August 16, 2018 at 9:59 AM.