On a mission: Brandon Wilds eager to make up for lost time

Fingers are twisted, nerves are jangling. What’s going to happen if South Carolina’s quarterback (whomever that may be) doesn’t play well right away?

No problem, Brandon Wilds said. Give me the ball.

“I want it bad,” South Carolina’s fifth-year senior tailback said at media day. “Coming out from last season and the season before it, playing here for a while, I’m just ready to be that guy. Ready to just show everybody what I have to bring to the table.”

The quarterback race has dominated USC football talk since Dylan Thompson threw his final pass. It is a legitimate concern – but most are focusing on what USC doesn’t have rather than what it does.

Wilds has 1,277 career rushing yards and 13 touchdowns. He scored five times last year. He leads a two-headed system with David Williams, and the Gamecocks have Shon Carson leading a capable group of backups.

USC ran the ball a lot when it was winning 33 games over three seasons, and while Thompson’s arm was the offense’s backbone last year, the Gamecocks still piled up 2,093 yards on the ground. Mike Davis finished 18 yards short of his second straight 1,000-yard season and Wilds had 570.

If the quarterbacks struggle early, they have the tailbacks to ease the burden and control the game. Wilds wants that responsibility – to help the Gamecocks return to where they were and to return to writing what began as a glorious career.

It was Wilds who donned the Superman cape to save the season in 2011 after Marcus Lattimore suffered the first of two season-ending knee injuries. The only healthy tailback on the roster, Wilds hammered Tennessee for 137 yards. He started five games in the season’s second half and broke 100 yards in three of them.

That was his moment. Fifth-string as a freshman, playing behind Lattimore and most figuring him for a move to fullback, Wilds proved he had what it took. “Since I was a little kid, I was always too big to run the ball, so they’d move me to different positions, but running back runs in my family,” Wilds said. “So I was always a running back and was going to stick with it.”

But he couldn’t follow it up.

Wilds redshirted 2012 with a high ankle sprain. He played in seven games in 2013, but a dislocated elbow and a bad hamstring nixed most of the season. A shoulder and a knee flared up in 2014, and while Wilds fought through them with some sizzling performances, he wasn’t 100 percent.

This season is his last go-round. He’s healthy. He’s in the backfield with the QBs during practice, calling out blitzes and whispering what coverages they’re about to face.

It’s been way too long since that Tennessee game.

“I think he wants it a lot,” running backs coach Everette Sands said. “His practice performance up to this point has been great. You can see him being explosive, just running down the field, finishing all his runs. It’s really important to him.”

Wilds knew he would have to be patient as a freshman, and yet he became the guy halfway through the season. It hasn’t been easy to re-learn that patience, especially when he couldn’t control the circumstances.

“It’s been real frustrating,” Sands said. “The great thing last year was it wasn’t anything that kept him out for a long period of time. The elbow the year before was six weeks. That year, our offense would have been so much better if he had been healthy.”

“Running back, it comes with injuries. Just fight through it and move on,” Wilds said. “I was patient then, and I’ll be patient now.”

The time for patience is over. Spurrier and Sands agree that Wilds is the No. 1 back, although he and Williams are 1A and 1B, with both expected to see significant time. Williams said their role is going to be vital with the QB situation the way it is, and looks to push Wilds for time.

“In the beginning, before fall even started, coach Sands sat me and B-Wilds down together and basically told us we need to come out here and push ourselves, compete every day and the job is open for either one of us,” Williams said.

It is Wilds’ job that Williams is pushing for, though. In 2011, Wilds rose to the top due to injuries. Now that he’s back, he doesn’t plan to leave.

“Since my freshman year, I always knew what I had to do,” Wilds said. “This year, you’ll see it.”

This story was originally published August 10, 2015 at 9:02 PM.