‘No one knows about’ this Gamecock O-lineman, but he’s impressed Greg Adkins early
If there’s one position group that’s likely to fly under the radar for South Carolina football during spring practices, it’s the offensive line.
With a quarterback position battle, a lack of proven options at wide receiver and defensive back, a potential dynamic 1-2 punch at running back and a lot of talent on the defensive line that has yet to blossom, the O-line has comparatively few questions. Sadarius Hutcherson is off to the NFL Draft, but otherwise the Gamecocks return every starter and a lot of depth.
But new offensive line coach Greg Adkins hinted Monday that just because a player is a returner with starting experience doesn’t mean he’s locked in to that spot.
“This offense is new for everybody, including myself, including them. And I think it’s a work in progress, to be honest with you,” Adkins said. “We’re still just trying to figure out who’s gonna play where and what plays we’re gonna run, things like that. So that’s the beauty of spring practice, is the ability to learn a lot, the ability to put in on offense, or put in a mindset, and we’ll work from there.”
Experience does still make a difference, Adkins said, especially when the coaching staff isn’t able to cover everything the defense might do and players have to fall back on their own knowledge and lessons learned over years playing at the SEC level.
“At the end of the day, you understand concepts of what you’re trying to do, whether it’s from a protection standpoint or from a run game standpoint, and you have this overall vision of what the structure should look like,” Adkins said. “Guys that have played will have an advantage over people that haven’t played, OK? And certainly there’s some guys that have played. But there’s certainly some guys that have played that are not performing like I want them to perform or they will perform. I got some younger guys that nobody knows anything about that have performed pretty well.”
One of those relative unknowns who has really impressed Adkins is redshirt sophomore Vincent Murphy.
“I tell you what, I like what Vinnie Murphy is doing. I really do. He’s a guy that’s working his tail off,” Adkins said. “He’s playing center and guard right now, I like what he’s doing. That’s a guy that no one knows about because he hasn’t played. I like what he’s doing right now, if I were to just single one guy out that probably none of you have really heard that much about.”
In two years at South Carolina, Murphy has played in just three games. As a recruit, though, he was considered one of the top centers in the country. At 6-foot-2, 305 pounds, he’s a little smaller than some of his linemates, and he wasn’t spotted among the top two units during the media viewing portion of Monday’s practice. But Adkins praised his work ethic and said his mindset is what South Carolina needs more of.
“I think he just works at the game, he loves football, and he works at the game,” Adkins said. “You have to kick him out of this place. He always wants to talk ball, he’s always wanting to watch film. It’s important to him. And again, I think the more people that we can get overall, and I’m not just singling out Vinnie, the more people we can get working like that is what we want. Not just on the O-line, that’s everybody — offense, defense, special teams, the whole everybody, and the more people we get wanting to work that way, the faster we can continue to move forward.”
