Everything Joe DeCamillis said ahead of South Carolina's season opener against Virginia Tech

South Carolina special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis spoke to the media on Thursday to preview the team’s season opener against Virginia Tech. Here’s everything he had to say.

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Opening statement

“First, I just wanted to say something about this opening game. 37 years straight for me, right there. What an honor, what a privilege, to be a part of this great game. So, that’s pretty cool.

“And then, our guys that all made teams [in the NFL] from our school and made teams other places. What a credit to them, what a credit to what coach [Shane] Beamer has built here.

“I just wanted to talk about those two things first.”

Do you know, for sure, who your four guys are going to be at placekicker, punter, holder and snapper? And if you could, could you tell us?

“They’ve done a great job of work, all of them. It’s been a great summer and fall camp for them. I think they’ve all improved. The capacity for work has been excellent. It’s been a great competition.

“I think you guys will know [who will start] when we’re getting started. Just watch the pre-game warmup, and we’ll be ready to rock and roll for you.”

Assuming that wide receivers are involved with you, what can you share about what each of those guys might bring to your room?

“They’ve done a good job of work, also. It’s been an extremely competitive training camp in all phases. I think all those guys have done a good job of learning the systems, especially the young guys. So, I think there’ll be some guys that have a role, no question about it. And the guys that are returning from last year are also going to have a role. It’s going to be a real credit for what these guys have done during camp. And, hopefully, that’ll help us get started the right way.”

Yesterday, Shane was saying that he wishes that the kickers kicked a little better. How do you feel like kicking has gone for the group, and do you feel the same way Shane does?

“Obviously, I’m going to feel the same way as the head coach. But honestly, you want perfection every day. It was a little bit windy the other day when we came out. Obviously, we’re going to be playing indoors [on Sunday], so that’ll be a factor. It’ll help us, hopefully.

“They’re younger kids that are learning to go at a high level, and this is going to be part of ramping up into more pressure situations. So, do I always want to be perfect? Hell yeah, I want to be perfect. But I think they’ve learned how to deal with anxiety, and they’ve learned how to work with some of the pressure situations that he’s put them under during training camp. And we hope that it translates into success for us.”

When you have new starters, do you have to look at it as, like, ‘How much of a leash do I give this guy? — if, say, they don’t perform the way they did last month?

“Like Coach [Beamer] talked about yesterday, this is a competition-based program. In the NFL, this happened to me before. We lost Morten Andersen and Dan Stryzinski one year. Morten’s obviously in the Hall of Fame; the other guy, I think, we led the league in the least amount of yards given up as a punter. It was unbelievable. But you had to make a decision and go from there and replace them with younger guys.

“That’s what’s going to happen here. That’s always going to be a case where we still have guys that are there. I think we have, what, seven specialists total? And it’s going to be a competition for them all year. So, [if] one performs really well, that’s who we’re going to go with.”

How would you sum up Virginia Tech’s special teams operation and what they’re doing?

“I think they play very hard. They’re very well-coached. That guy’s [Stu Holt] been there for a few years now, consecutively. They do some different things that are going to be tough to get under control, but he’s really, really done a good job of being aggressive and trying to make plays for the offense and the defense.”

Shane’s talked about, in the offseason, making an emphasis on the return game. How would you evaluate the progress from all those guys that you’ve seen in there?

“I think all those guys have done a good job. I think it’s been a great offseason. Spring’s been really good, but the summertime’s been great for those guys getting better at catching the ball, and also, from the standpoint of the blocking part of it, too.

“You have to get a returnable ball, and that’s what we hope we can get from these guys. If we can, hopefully, we can make them pay on those.”

Virginia Tech’s special teams had a couple of blocked kicks last year. How are you coaching your young guys to be aware of the guys coming off the edge?

“I think the biggest thing is we want a ‘one-down mentality.’ I’ve talked about that in here before. They’ve got to understand that we don’t have second or third down to get it right. We’ve got to make sure that that one down is correct — a fourth down, most of the time, but also on kickoff and kickoff return, you don’t have a second chance to get it right. So, that’s what we’re really trying to get done for those guys as much as we can.”

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