Gamecocks on Hilinski’s toughness: ‘You play your hardest for guys like him’
Fourteen times this year, South Carolina freshman quarterback Ryan Hilinski has been dragged down for a sack. On at least 27 other occasions, he was hurried in the pocket, sometimes taking massive hits while standing in to make throws.
Against Georgia, a diving defender took out his knee and forced him from the game. When he was down on the field, Hilinski slapped the turf in pain. And on the sideline, his teammates could tell it was serious, because Hilinski’s not the type of player to go down easily.
“You can tell when they’re kinda faking it,” sophomore linebacker Ernest Jones said of how he reacts when he sees quarterbacks get hit. “Or you can tell when the hit really didn’t matter to them, like they’re one of those warrior type of guys, that they’ll get up, they’ll keep getting up. That’s what type of guy he is, he’s gonna keep getting up, he’s gonna keep fighting, he’s gonna claw his way out of any bad situation.”
Sure enough, Hilinski came back from a sprained knee to play the next week against Florida in the rain. He was sacked three times, hurried seven. But he never stayed down for long or looked shaken, and that meant something to the Gamecocks.
“Your team looks at you, and if you show bad body language, they’re gonna look back and see you. So I think your body language is everything,” redshirt freshman Dakereon Joyner, Hilinski’s backup, said.
Those hits Hilinski takes are personal for the guys up front trying to stop them, and the toughness he shows in coming back from them are appreciated.
“He gets hit, he’s a guy that’s gonna get right back up, I’m gonna try go help him up if I’m close enough to him. But with him just taking hits, you just hate it for your quarterback, so it kinda motivates you to protect him a little more,” senior center Donell Stanley said.
And even on the other side of the ball, Hilinski’s ability to withstand punishment and deliver for his team is inspiring.
“We love Ryan. We never want to see Ryan hit the ground. But from a defensive guy on the other side of the ball, when we see Ryan get hit, we’re always on the worried side, because we know he had an injury. So when he keeps getting up and he keeps fighting, you’ll play for a guy like that,” Jones said. “You learn to love a guy like that in your locker room and as a team you rally around a guy like that, no matter what struggles he’s having or what’s going on on the offensive side of the ball, from a defensive standpoint, you play your hardest for guys like him.”
In a trying season where pass protection hasn’t always been solid — USC is tied for 87th nationally in sacks allowed per game — sophomore cornerback Jaycee Horn said he can’t remember a particularly hard shot that he was shocked to see Hilinski come back from. He just knows there’s been a lot.
“Very tough quarterback and he has taken a lot of hard shots,” Horn said. “(The defense) just be looking at it on the big screen, and he pops up every time. It just shows what type of character and what type of guy he is, and I’m glad to have him as our quarterback.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2019 at 9:15 AM.
