South Carolina coaches: More press needed from cornerbacks

What’s clear from the jump: South Carolina will need to be better in the secondary in 2016.

Co-defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson, whose focus is defensive backs and corners, identified the spot where the group needed to improve the most in the spring. It should be music to fans’ ears.

“They hadn’t been much of a press team,” Robinson said. “Just working on our technique, press man-to-man. And we’ll get better. It’s something that you’ve got to work on every single day. You come out to practice, you’re not going to see a lot of different drills that we do with the corners. It’s the same exact drills every single day.”

It went in line with coach Will Muchamp’s declaration: Unless the secondary play improves, corners will play back and not in anyone’s face. The amount of cushion receivers got was clearly a sore spot for the South Carolina faithful in 2015, enough so the coaches have referenced it multiple times since getting hired.

That’s not to say the Gamecocks corners, nearly all holdovers from a season ago, won’t press at all.

“Understanding that they have to be able to play bump-and-run in critical situations,” Robinson said. “But we’ll do a lot of different things as far as two-trapping and a lot of quarters coverage.”

Robinson echoed Muschamp’s assessment that the group was far from where it needed to be, but also gave the players credit for improving.

Outside four-star junior college transfer Jamarcus King, who could privde a boost, the players will be the same as last year. It’s a matter of building them into something better, a process that will have to carry through into the season.

“We just have to work on our technique,” Robinson said. “If we do that with eye-control and playing the ball down the field and those different things, we’ll be fine.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2016 at 5:40 PM with the headline "South Carolina coaches: More press needed from cornerbacks."