A look at how South Carolina coaches manage recruiting at a game at Williams-Brice

South Carolina football is teetering toward a sellout against Kentucky. It will be a potentially electric atmosphere under the lights at Williams-Brice.

And that means a chance to show off the facility to plenty of recruits.

Any home game is going to have a crowd of them. This one should be no different. Last week, Will Muschamp gave a look for the timing of a recruit’s day, as a staff balances coaching and giving the proper attention to potential future Gamecocks.

“We had lunch in our new facility for all the recruits,” Muschamp said. “Matt Lindsey and Jessica Jackson and our entire recruiting staff handles all that. We come in the stadium for Gamecock Walk.”

That gets Muschamp and players over, but behind the scenes, the assistants double back.

“Most of our assistants go through the Gamecock Walk, and then they go back to the facility to meet with recruits, to meet with players because right now we don’t have anything in the stadium.”

At some point soon, that area will be completed, replacing part of the Crews building on the south side of the stadium with an area where players can eat and hang out.

But Muschamp isn’t the most concerned there because it means showing off a $50 million building.

“We’re housing them all at our facility for now, which is fine because we need to expose them to our facility, which is obviously an impressive place,” Muschamp said. “Before the game, I try to meet with as many recruits as I can. Be able to visit with them and their families as best as I can. It’s not a lot of time, obviously, those situations.

“Sometimes they get there late. I’m on the field. They’ll come and bring them up to me on the field in that situation.”

He said his message in that moment is a simple one. He tells them to visualize themselves being out there, to see what it will be like and understand that.

That approach has earned the current staff recruiting classes ranked 21st, 18th and 17th in the country. The current class is rated 18th, with seven four-stars.

Now his team will have a chance to impress a few more kids, maybe more in the 2021 and 2022 classes. And the feel in Williams-Brice will surely factor in.

“Nothing but positive feedback from recruits as far as the game day atmosphere,” Muschamp said.

This story was originally published September 25, 2019 at 5:00 AM.