One Gamecock expects he might be targeted by power-running Kentucky
The last time South Carolina’s football team took the trip to Lexington, Ky., it was a long night for Darius English.
Yes, the willowy 6-foot-6, 245-pound Gamecocks buck defensive end had three sacks, but the Wildcats also slammed him with pulling tight ends and sent power plays his direction with regularity. Stanley Williams and Benny Snell pounded away for 206 yards and Kentucky took the one-score victory.
So why does this matter now?
It matters because South Carolina again comes into the matchup with a lighter player at that position.
At 230 pounds, Bryson Allen-Williams is 28 pounds lighter than injured starter D.J. Wonnum. Kentucky is still very much built around a pounding running game, with Snell being among the most productive backs in the country.
But last week, Allen-Williams held his own against a power team, so this is nothing new.
“Teams, they think because I’m a little bit smaller and stuff like that, they can run the ball at me,” Allen-Williams said. “Coach (Mike Peterson) does a great job in helping me and Aaron (Sterling), because we’re two smaller guys, working technique.”
He managed to do that against Vanderbilt last Saturday, creating havoc on the edge and making plays against a Commodores offense heavy on power formations and downhill running.
Allen-Williams led the team with seven tackles, including one for loss. Vanderbilt running backs averaged fewer than 4 yards per carry. He often managed to work free of blocks and clog things up.
And that’s based on some innate skills in the eyes of his coach.
“Very elusive on the line of scrimmage,” Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp said of Allen-Williams. “He’s got a very good feel for blocks. He always has. He’s got things you can’t coach as far as feeling blocks and pressure points and things like that. He’s very quick and very elusive on blocks.”
He’ll be asked to do all that again, and a little more, with USC tasked with slowing down Snell.
The bruising 223-pound back has 540 yards and seven touchdowns in four games. He had 125 yards in the opener, 175 against Florida and 165 with four touchdowns against Mississippi State.
Overall, the Wildcats are averaging more than 250 rushing yards per game and 6.2 per carry.
If South Carolina wants to snap its four-game skid to the Wildcats, keep things going after the Vanderbilt win and start moving toward solidifying itself as potentially the No. 2 team in the SEC East, the Gamecocks will have to slow Kentucky on the ground.
And if they can do that, the smaller Allen-Williams will have to rely on his training and then let those skills Muschamp referenced take over.
“We probably hit the sled as 6-techniques almost every day,” Allen-Williams said. “just focusing on striking blocks, getting off blocks and making plays in the backfield. You can go out there and just be in your gap, but he doesn’t want us to be robots. He tells us, do your job and then go make a play.”