South Carolina adopts new ‘minicamp’ practice style. It has its perks, Gamecocks say

The list of changes to the South Carolina football program keeps on growing.

After a 4-8 season in 2025, USC coach Shane Beamer brought in five new coordinators and position coaches, 37 transfers and early-enrollee freshmen ... and, now, a new practice structure.

USC began its second week of spring practices on Wednesday, and players met with the media for the first time this spring. Gamecock defensive back Gerald Kilgore revealed it was also the first day of a new “minicamp-style” practice structure, which he said is expected to continue as spring practice goes on.

“The way Coach Beamer has set up practice now is a little bit different than before, which is smarter, because it’s keeping a lot of guys healthy with our minicamp style,” Kilgore said.

How the new format works

USC’s new practice structure is different from a regular college practice structure, Kilgore explained, because the Gamecocks aren’t thrown into direct competition drills right away. They started on Wednesday by focusing on individual drills, and will begin to ramp up to one-on-one, seven-on-seven and eventually 11-on-11 competition as the week goes on.

This is similar to the NFL’s mandatory minicamps, where full contact is prohibited but teams are allowed to work up through 11-on-11 drills.

“Today was just strictly (individual drills),” Kilgore said. “Do our work, go through our work with our coaches ... just small stuff like that. And then tomorrow, we’ll move it up a little bit more, and we’ll do seven-on-seven, one-on-ones and stuff like that. So just slowly moving you into the week.”

Kilgore said practices are still competitive even as USC moves into competition drills more carefully.

“When we really get a chance to compete, it’s definitely competition,” he said. “It’s back-and-forth, back-and-forth. They’re making a play, we’re making a play.”

How it’s helping USC players

For Kilgore, the new practice style gives USC an advantage by both preserving the Gamecocks’ health and giving them more time to prepare mentally.

“It’s helping guys mentally to pick up things fast. I really like the style of practice that we’re doing, and it is keeping a lot of guys healthy. So yeah, shout out to Coach Beamer,” Kilgore said.

Sophomore reciever Jayden Sellers, who’s been going against Kilgore in the handful of competition drills USC has done, agreed that he’s been able to learn signals and get more comfortable with the offense because of the new practice structure.

“It’s good to do that, because we’re getting the signals, we’re gonna be able to move faster, instead of like us already going against each other and we barely know the signals,” Sellers said.

USC has 11 more spring practice sessions, and time will tell if the new practice style has any long-term impact. But so far, the Gamecocks seem happy with the results.

“Now, the next day, we’re gonna be more comfortable being able to move faster and do a whole bunch of stuff instead of just thinking,” Sellers said.

This story was originally published March 18, 2026 at 1:51 PM.