The message Marcus Lattimore gave South Carolina’s players before the Vanderbilt game
Through much of the first half Saturday against Vanderbilt, one could say South Carolina’s football team was at a crossroads.
The team had lost a highly-hyped game to Georgia and then had to sit out a week because of a hurricane. Vanderbilt spent that week nearly pushing Notre Dame to the limit, and the hype built enough the Commodores got a clean sweep of ESPN College GameDay picks.
With the way expectations built for this season, there was no place for a loss to Vanderbilt.
So before the game, the team — especially the older players — got some words of wisdom from former USC star and current director of player development Marcus Lattimore.
“Marcus just had a message for us before the game, talking about legacy and lineage,” linebacker Bryson Allen-Williams said after his team pulled away for a 37-14 win. “We’re going to start our legacy and make sure we leave this season and next year the next couple of teams that follow us continue to see the kind of ball that we want to play.”
Lattimore’s own legacy looms large across the Gamecocks program.
His arrival signaled the start of South Carolina’s ascent to its highest point. His first team won nine games and the program’s only division title. The next three teams won 33 games.
Lattimore in some ways a part-time player for all that. An injury ended his second season after seven games. Nine games into his junior year, he suffered the devastating knee injury that ultimately ended his career. The year after he left, USC went 11-2 and earned a top-5 finish.
But his impact as a personality still loomed, making him one of the most beloved Gamecocks ever, from his playing days through his arrival as a university staff member.
The Gamecocks this season might have to build up some equity and some of that legacy. Deebo Samuel will leave after the season, and the likes of juniors Jake Bentley, Bryan Edwards and Javon Kinlaw could be in the mix to make a jump to the NFL.
To get to the point where seniors left a team future ones would want to emulate, they’d need to take care of business in Nashville, especially coming off a loss that sparked a lot of commentary.
“You see everything people say, we’re not ready,” Allen-Williams said. “We saw the comment before the game, Gameday said that Vandy is going to win.
“But it’s all about us.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2018 at 3:54 PM.