Gamecocks tight end KC Crosby finally finds his fit in USC offense

For his first two years on campus, South Carolina tight end K.C. Crosby tried to fit his skill set into the offense, something he had trouble pulling off.

With a new staff this spring, the offense is looking to fit him.

“You wait, you wait, and you just be patient, and finally something good happens,” Crosby said. “I’m back to where I feel like I got recruited to play because coming out of high school, I was never a guy that put my hand down at the tight end position. I was always that hybrid guy.”

Since he was recruited out of Bamberg-Ehrhardt high school, Crosby has occupied a space between two positions. At 6-foot-1, 226 pounds, he’s not the kind of powerful blocker that flourishes as a sixth offensive lineman. But he also lacked the top-end speed and elusiveness to thrive primarily splitting out as a wide receiver.

New offensive coordinator Kurt Roper wants his tight ends to straddle that divide. Most of the time, the tight end is aligned a step back from the line of scrimmage, usually moving around the formation before the snap (to make the defense show something) and often blocking from different angles.

For Crosby, it’s a welcome change.

“This is my first time being able to motion across the formation, into the formation, away from the formation,” said Crosby, who mostly played special teams in 2015. “It’s been a real different scenario for me.”

In spring practice, he’s lined up at wide receiver or in the backfield, going on routes a running back usually would. His spot in the pecking order is uncertain as ex-wide receiver Hayden Hurst has received most of the work with the starters and sophomore Kyle Markway is in the mix.

The change matches a general shift in college football offenses demanding more multiplicity out of tight ends. With high-tempo attacks being all the rage, having a player who can approximate two positions and allow the same group of personnel to do different things becomes incredibly valuable.

It means players such as Crosby or fellow tight end Hurst (a wide receiver last season) go from not quite fitting everywhere to fitting all over.

“KC gives us a lot of variety as Hayden does too because both guys can stretch the field,” coach Will Muschamp said. “They both can block at the point of attack and they can give you issues on how do you count them defensively. Do you count them as a tight end or do you count them as a wideout?”

The coach noted those extra players can force a defense to account for different fronts in run defense or pass rushing, and then split out to force a linebacker to work in open space.

All that doesn’t come easy. The new tight end position (sometimes called H-back or move position) asks more of players in terms of players knowing a variety of spots. Crosby will often find himself on the wing, just off the offensive tackle, but he’ll also be in the slot or split wide or in the backfield.

But as someone who spent two seasons moving around, looking for space he could fit, he can only relish taking it all in.

“I’ve been trying to take it in real quickly because Roper is asking a lot of us at the position,” Crosby said. “So I’ve just been taking it in really quickly, learning in my off days outside of the facility.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Gamecocks tight end KC Crosby finally finds his fit in USC offense."