Everything Clayton White said in his Thursday press conference previewing Virginia Tech

South Carolina defensive coordinator Clayton White spoke to the media on Thursday to preview the team’s Week 1 matchup with Virginia Tech. Kickoff is at 3 p.m. on Sunday and will be broadcast on ESPN.

Here’s everything White had to say.

Opening statement

“Obviously excited for the season here to get started. Great test for us with Virginia Tech. A ton of respect for that program. It’s a team that’s normally been a physical and fast football team that has a great tradition. So that’s exciting. Obviously, growing up in my era, Virginia Tech is always one of those teams that you felt like it’s a fun time to play those guys. Obviously, it’s a good football team, starting off with their quarterback. (Kyron) Drones is probably one of the top quarterbacks right now that we’re facing. If you just look across our schedule in regards to just experience and play-making ability, definitely. We’re excited to go out and play football.”

You mentioned Kyron Dones. You guys have gone against a playmaker every day in practice. Where do you think Drones is compared to LaNorris Sellers and trying to stop him throughout this past month?

“Yes, I do feel like there are some similarities in their game. I do think they’re both kind of built the same way. Both have strong arms, do a great job of stepping up in the pocket and making people pay for mistakes and opening gaps and stuff like that. But I do think that they both have really, really similar skill sets.”

How challenging has it been for you throughout the offseason and this month, when you’re trying to prepare for this game, and Virginia Tech has so many new guys who came from different spots?

“In college football, we have to do a great job of doing some research and understanding that OC, Mr. Phillip Montgomery, came from a system where, you know, it’s a well-known system with a broad system, and understanding his background. He’s a well-respected OC. Obviously, their players come from all over the place, but we have to do a great job with getting our film and doing a great job of researching, you know, so just make sure we cover all our bases.”

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What will the conversations be like with Jordan Dove these next couple of days and before game day, as he prepares to be the defensive line coach on Sunday?

“Nothing will really change in regards to our conversation. We’ll do a good job of just making sure that we stay the course. And obviously everybody’s picked up their role. But for the most part, Jordan Dove is heavily involved in what we do on a day-to-day basis, so Coach (Shane) Beamer does a great job of pushing the staff members to make sure you have someone ready if something like this were to happen. So very unfortunate things happen here, but there’s a linebacker coach that’s ready, there’s a D-line coach that’s ready. There’s an edge coach that’s ready, and there’s two or three DB coaches that are ready. So this is one of those things that we kind of, not saying prepared for this exact thing, but we want to make sure that we’re good to go. But Dove, we have a few conversations, not a lot.”

For those who are just now getting to know Dove, what are some things you can share about him, and just a little background about him?

“One, full of energy. He came in as an equipment manager here, and he was one of those guys who kind of, not begged us, but kind of kept putting apples on my desk, trying to make sure he wanted to get upstairs and become a coach. So you let those guys kind of continue to beg and see if they really want them to put them through an interview process. He was locked in as a student, as an undergrad, probably a freshman or sophomore here. He came up here with a suit and tie. So those are things I remember from him, a very professional young coach who’s going to be really good at this business, because he had a lot of passion for everything. That kind of fits right in with Tray Rob. So they’re really very similar in regard to just passion for this university and then passion for teaching the details of that position. So it’s been awesome. But he’s a very detailed, super smart — smarter than all of us. So it’s always fun to be around him.”

There was a lot of talk about the “hockey shifts” and the way you guys were able to rotate defensive players in and out. Is that something that you feel you’re going to be able to do to the same type of extent this season?

“Hockey shifts? I don’t know if I said that one, but I do remember I was doing a lot of shifting with our guys, just in regard to the depth that we had. I think we’re able to do something very similar. Feel good about it. We wanted to have a couple more pop in the rotation, but obviously, unfortunate things happen, but we do feel good about being able to keep our guys fresh. And it’s a long season, starting with this first game here. It’s a grind all the way through the season, but our guys will definitely be trying to keep them fresh for the month of November, for the fourth quarters of every single football game we do play.”

How much do you have your starting lineup set? Do you know the first 11 who are going out on the field?

“I do.”

Can you explain the battle at linebacker with those guys? I think a lot of people kind of assume Fred Johnson will be there. But who are the other guys who have been vying for the jobs there?

“Competition is something that we always talk about here. That’s one of those things that’s continuing all the way to Friday night. Sometimes Saturday morning, we’ll kind of make a decision on, depends on how our meetings are going on Friday night. But at linebacker, we have Fred Johnson, we have Shawn Murphy, we have (Justin Okoronkwo), we have (Jaron) Willis. Those guys have been the four guys that’s really been stepping up. And we have Jamian Risher, who’s doing a really good job for us as a fifth guy. We have a lot of other guys that are definitely competing, some freshmen that are trying to getting better and trying to crack the lineup. But for the most part, we have those first four.”

Among your secondary, how confident are you in guys being able to play different positions, if they have to?

“We have some versatile guys. We always talk about it, you start with DQ Smith. He’s played field safety, boundary safety and nickel since he’s been here in significant games. I do believe that some of our guys are able to do it, between (Jalon) Kilgore and (Brandon) Cisse. The main person is, obviously, DQ can play multiple positions. Those are the main three that we feel like if we said something to them right now in the next 30 minutes, go play the other position, they can do it without going through a whole offseason of training at another position.”

Obviously, stopping the run is an important part of defense, with this Virginia Tech run game having to replace a running back who ran for a ton of yards last year. They got a bunch of guys from the transfer portal and one with an injury issue. What’s kind of your level of preparation to get ready for whoever is carrying the ball?

“They have good backs. They have Terion Stewart, they have (Marcellous) Hawkins, they have the quarterback. This system itself it’s a spreadish system, but they do a good job of running the football. We’re pretty sure. The first thing they say is, ‘Make sure we can run the football.’ They’re not gonna come out and say, you know, let’s not run the football. So they went out and got running backs. That tells you right there how important the run game is to them. They went out and got a good O-line coach who bought some players from his previous school. So you do your research there, that team ran the football. So it’s gonna be very important for us to make sure we understand what they’re trying to do from a run game perspective. And you also have to be careful. You can’t put eight, nine in the box, because now you’re gonna have guys playing one-on-one all day. Just gotta be smart with how you do it, make sure our guys understand what we’re facing, most importantly.”

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