This Gamecock’s first start was the bowl: How he graded his play — and his nerves
The position South Carolina center Hank Manos was put in wasn’t exactly ideal.
As a freshman, he’d played all of 12 snaps in the regular season. He didn’t even get into a season-opening blowout. He was at guard in mop-up work late against Chattanooga.
And yet he found himself in the middle of the line, snapping the ball to Jake Bentley against a good Virginia defense in the Belk Bowl.
“It was a little nerve-wracking at first,” Manos said. “But once I settled down, it was good. It’s crazy playing in front of all those people. That was a new thing for me. But outside of that, it was just like any other day.”
Manos had a few high snaps early but generally didn’t seem to have any particularly egregious moments. The line overall struggled, but that seemed to fall on the whole group.
He had to step in after Zack Bailey broke his leg, which moved starting center Donell Stanley out to guard.
The Chapin High School alum admitted the moment got to him a little bit, at least at the start.
“Looking back at the film, I played nervous for the first little bit,” Manos said. “But after that, played solid, still got to improve.”
His improvement might well say if he can establish himself as a starter going forward. He beat out veteran and former walk-on Chandler Farrell for that bowl start. Now he’s battling with Farrell and perhaps some others for one of the two open spots on the line.
At the moment, Dylan Wonnum and Sadarius Hutcherson are the clubhouse leaders at tackle, and Stanley is back to playing guard. But on Eric Wolford’s offensive line, everything if fluid. If someone steps up at tackle or guard, Hutcherson could end up back at guard and Stanley could return to center.
And even Manos could find himself playing guard, as he’s spent time there at Wolford’s request.
“It’s great,” Manos said of working at the No. 1 center spot. “It’s always great to be next to Donell, Hutch, everybody else. Right now everybody’s just working around, trying to find spots. That’s really what spring is about, just figuring everything out for everybody.”
One area where he has made progress is weight, which was a question coming off a high school career that included a state wrestling championship. That meant keeping his weight down, cutting weight, so he came to campus a bit undersized.
Even at the start of the season, he was only 278 pounds by his estimation. With a full practice schedule as a second-team lineman, he managed to add 20 pounds by the bowl game and is now right around 300.
He’s not sure how much more he might add, planning to confer with nutritionist Kristin Coggin.
“It’s always difficult adding weight, especially for me,” Manos said. “Whenever you’re practicing, it’s more difficult. But at the same time, it helps because you’re running and working out all at the same time, so that weight you’re putting on isn’t bad weight.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2019 at 12:23 PM.