Mike Bobo’s first impressions of Ryan Hilinski, Dakereon Joyner, USC’s quarterbacks
South Carolina football’s new offensive coordinator, Mike Bobo, has been on the job for a week now, and he’s already spoken to rising sophomore quarterback Ryan Hilinski three times.
After all, in addition to his OC duties, Bobo is the Gamecocks’ new quarterback coach, taking over for Dan Werner, who helped recruit Hiliinski. So forming a rapport with the signal caller is obviously important for the new offensive head.
“I‘ve got a chance to meet Ryan and talk to Ryan, since he stayed here and had his little knee surgery, cleaned up his meniscus,” Bobo said. “Excited about him, I see a guy that’s got some talent, see a guy that went through some growing pains being a freshman. And we gotta do things to help him, and some of that is the run game and some of that is protection.
“But had a chance to sit down with him on three occasions already, and you know, he’s gonna be here, his family lives here now, so we’re starting that process right now of building a relationship with him.”
As of Monday afternoon, Bobo said he’s watched seven games of film of his new team. That means he’s watched Hilinski shine at times and labor mightily at others, part of an up-and-down season in which he battled injuries, both to himself and to his top weapons, and threw for 2,252 yards, 11 touchdowns and four interceptions.
And Bobo said he’s already conveyed one thing about what he’s seen to Hilinski.
“I’ve talked to Ryan about this and I don’t feel bad about saying it: He’s gotta get better fundamentally as a quarterback. And part of playing that position is being fundamentally sound. Doesn’t matter what style that you play, if you’re not fundamentally good at that position, you’re not going to have a chance to be successful at that position. So we’re gonna work hard on fundamentals and doing the little things right,” Bobo said.
In addition to Hilinski, Bobo said he’s met with rising redshirt sophomore Dakereon Joyner.
“Really impressed with him. He’s a guy that wants to do whatever he can to help this football team. That was the first words out of his mouth. It wasn’t, ‘I need to play quarterback, I need to do this.’ It was, ‘Coach, I want to help this football team. I want to do whatever it takes to help this team be successful.’ And just love the look in that kid’s eye,” Bobo said. “Excited about seeing him this offseason in offseason conditioning and getting into spring ball.”
Joyner moved between wide receiver and quarterback this past season as injuries forced USC to adjust its depth chart. He completed 16 of 28 passes for 168 yards, ran 29 times for 107 yards and caught six passes for 46 yards. And echoing Bobo, coach Muschamp said he believes Joyner will play a key role for the Gamecocks moving forward.
“Right now our offensive staff is ... evaluating our talent, evaluating our personnel as we continue to fit the pieces moving forward offensively and what we’re going to look like. He certainly is going to be a huge part of that, I can assure you of that,” Muschamp said.
Bobo also said he has met with rising redshirt junior Jay Urich, who also split time between quarterback and wide receiver this season. The one quarterback he couldn’t publicly talk about Monday is four-star commit Luke Doty. But he’s already met with him too — on the day he was officially hired, Bobo drove down to Myrtle Beach to visit Doty, and the No. 2-ranked dual threat quarterback in his class gave a positive impression of that first meeting.
