‘Game continues to slow down’ for Ryan Hilinski, but Gamecock QBs will have to adapt
Last year, Ryan Hilinski went through spring football practice with South Carolina competing for a backup job behind senior Jake Bentley with the understanding that he’d compete for his first real starting experience in 2020, when Bentley was gone.
Things obviously changed when Bentley got hurt, thrusting Hilinski into the spotlight for the Gamecocks. His first season as a starter had some high points, but by the end he was struggling, playing with an injured knee.
Now he enters his second slate of spring practices completely healthy and with the hope that all the experience and physical punishment last year will fuel even more growth, especially under new coach Mike Bobo.
USC held the first of 15 spring practices Wednesday.
“The game, for any freshman, the more snaps, the more reps you accumulate, the game continues to slow down for you,” coach Will Muschamp said of Hilinski’s development. “And there will be some new things that he’ll be going through as far as, we’ll be up under center more. Offensively, there’ll be some different things from the verbiage standpoint, communication standpoint that he’ll have to adapt to, as well as all the quarterbacks.”
Going under center instead of the shotgun formation is not something Hilinski did a lot of last season in the up-tempo, spread offense of former offensive coordinator Bryan McClendon and QB coach Dan Werner. Throughout offseason workouts, one of Muschamp and Bobo’s main focuses was making sure Hilinski and the team’s other quarterbacks got the footwork down.
“The footwork’s different, the timing is different, the timing of the routes is different, whether it’s a five-step, a seven-step or a three-step quick game, whatever the case may be,” Muschamp said. “The play actions off of that are different, but we feel like moving forward, that’s what’s gonna help our football team.”
Hilinski’s growth and adjustment to Bobo’s system will be aided by graduate transfer Collin Hill, who played for Bobo at Colorado State before following him to USC. Hill is set to miss all of spring practice recovering from a torn ACL but will likely have to mentor a young position room featuring Hilinski, freshman Luke Doty and redshirt junior Jay Urich, who split time between receiver and quarterback but is back to full-time QB for the spring, Muschamp said.
And with Hill out until fall’s preseason practices, Muschamp seemed to indicate that a firm pecking order at signal caller won’t be coming soon.
“We’re going to compete to have the best guy on day one start, to help us win football games and who can be most productive for our football team. And we’ll evaluate that as we move to spring and move to the summer, get into fall camp and go from there,” Muschamp said.
In evaluating the QBs, however, Muschamp did say that mobility wouldn’t be crucial.
“You got to be able to throw the football in this day and age. Do legs help? Sure. But you can do some things to help yourself if you don’t necessarily have a mobile quarterback. But being accurate with the football, you got to be able to throw the football this day and age,” Muschamp said.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 1:35 PM.
