USC special teams preview: Joe Robinson expects new faces to push veteran talent
As Joe Robinson enters his fourth season as South Carolina’s special teams coordinator, the word he continues to preach is “consistency.” And he means being consistently better in all aspects.
The Gamecocks have a weapon on field goals in junior Elliott Fry, but the team finished last in the SEC and near the bottom of the country in kickoff and punt return yardage a season ago.
“We don’t sit around and mope about last year’s numbers. But, if I could go back and change them, you better believe I would,” Robinson said. “It doesn’t mean it’s all on (kick returner) Shon Carson or all on (punt returner) Pharoh Cooper. Those are two talented kids with the ability to do good things. We all have to help them out a little bit better.”
Coach Steve Spurrier agrees with that assessment.
“I’m not sure we’ve always had our best athletes on special teams like we need to do,” he said. “Usually, if you have a strong defense, your special teams will be very good also. A lot of the same guys play on both. Your defensive backs and linebackers should be on most of your special teams.”
Fry has been one of the most consistent kickers in South Carolina history and is fourth on the school’s all-time list for points scored with 204. Last year’s second-team All-SEC performer has connected the past two seasons on nearly 77 percent of his field goal attempts and is nearly automatic inside of 40 yards, where that accuracy increases to 91 percent. His career long is 47 yards, so distance has been a priority this offseason along with improving his accuracy.
He will be working with a new holder and longsnapper, so that has been another focus during the summer. Newcomer Sean Kelly is expected to take over the holder position while Drew Williams likely will add the duties of shortsnapper for extra points and field goals. He’s been the longsnapper on punts the past two years.
“Fry’s been very consistent, so it’s a good thing to have that. But like anything else that we do, he has to continue to work and get better and improve,” Robinson said. “He’ll have a new snapper and have a new holder, so we obviously have challenges ahead of us for that unit.”
Kelly is a walk-on who punted at Florida Atlantic in 2012 and 2013. He averaged 41.3 yards per punt on 140 attempts. He came out of spring practice as the favorite to handle Gamecock punting duties for this year.
“He’s a very athletic kid with a strong leg,” Robinson said. “He needs to work on his consistency as well. It always comes down to that with these guys. You can hit four or five good balls in a row, but you hit a line drive to the wrong guy, he has a chance to take it back. Kelly has a lot of college experience, so he brings a lot of good things to the table for us.”
Landon Ard has been the kickoff specialist for most of the past two seasons. The senior is going to have to battle Fry and freshman Joseph Charlton from A.C. Flora in the preseason.
“Landon has done a great job, and we’re very happy with the length he brings to kickoffs,” Robinson said. “Elliott brings a lot of accuracy and consistency, and I think he could be a very good kickoff guy. He has a lot of great hang time. Joseph has a little bit of both. I’m hoping for a spirited competition, and may the best man win.”
South Carolina averaged 19.1 yards per kickoff return and 5.0 yards per punt return last season. Carson and Cooper return in those two respective roles, but Robinson expects to give several players a chance.
“I’ve got a bunch of names in front of me,” Robinson said. “In the five day accumulation period, we’ll have a lot of guys out there catching balls. We’ll look at all of them, but at the end of the day, we have the returning starters coming back at both of those spots. I think you’ll see Deebo Samuel press those guys, and I think Chris Lammons wants to get back there and press them. A lot of guys want those jobs. ”