Gamecock receivers meshing well, looking to impact offense

South Carolina football’s commitment to get better at wide receiver has been evident during preseason camp. Even in the Columbia heat, the group stays long after practice catching passes and punts.

But as the first week of the season approaches, the leaders in the room know there’s more work to do.

“Just grinding, grinding, grinding, day in and day out. It’ll be a lot of miscommunications, a lot of everybody taking bad steps, receivers running bad routes, whether it’s depth, not making plays that you need to make,” Josh Vann said. “It’s all just building. But that’s what we do. That’s what practice is for. So you mess it up in practice, so by the time you get to the game, everybody’s locked in and on the same page.”

During the offseason, the Gamecocks brought in fresh talent to surround Vann, their leading receiver, with. Despite having a breakout season, Vann still feels there’s a lot of weight on his shoulders. And there’s good reason for that.

Aside from Vann, last season’s receiving corps combined for 70 catches with 777 yards and five touchdowns. To put it into perspective, Vann caught 43 passes for 679 yards and an equal amount of touchdowns.

Instead of letting any pressure get to him, Vann plays with the same mindset he’s always had.

“For me, just going out to make every play to the best of my ability whenever it comes,” Vann said. “But I guess with the room being so stacked as it is right now if you wanna put it like that, it’s better…Cause you got a lot of guys that you can put the ball in their hands as well.”

To ease Vann’s workload, transfers like Juice Wells and Corey Rucker as well as freshman Landon Samson were brought in to help the Gamecock offense. Tight ends Nate Adkins and Austin Stogner come in to alleviate some pressure as well.

For Wells and Rucker, who played at James Madison and Arkansas State respectively, being the new kids on the block can be tough. To smoothen their transition, the older guys have helped as mentors and kept them on the right track.

“Josh doesn’t talk much but (Dakereon Joyner), he’s always been right there beside me when we work out. He always there making sure that I’m good with everything guiding me along the way. Really just making sure I’m straight,” Rucker said. “So that’s probably him and Jalen Brooks are two guys that’s been here, that’s kind of taken me in and making sure I’m good with everything.”

With more reliable receivers to work with, the offense hopes to take the next step. In addition, keeping the Gamecock defense off the field will be just as important. While Clayton White’s group forced plenty of turnovers, the offense had problems stringing together consistent drives last season.

Going into his second season, Marcus Satterfield plans to make some changes in the passing game.

“We’re going to take care of the football and we’ve got to be explosive…And how you do that, like we talked earlier, we’ve got to be good at pass protection,” Satterfield said. “So we got to be unique. We can’t just do what we’ve always done and have one pass protection dropped back and throw it 50 times. We have to be unique in how we protect our edges, protect certain people, create different pockets and launch points.”

“I think one thing that we’ve been stressing this whole camp is just take care of the ball and we had a chance to be plus-10 turnover margin last year, as many takeaways as our defense got but we just turned the ball over,” Satterfield said. “So our guys have done a really nice job to that thus far. And I think if we do that, and we can protect the pocket, protect the passer, we have a chance to be pretty good.”

Through two scrimmages, the Gamecock offense has found itself struggling in the red zone. To resolve this issue, Vann said the group needs to be able to capitalize on its opportunities and stay on the same page. Shane Beamer mentioned the offense was much better, especially stretching the field horizontally.

“When you get down in the red zone, everything condenses. Routes get shorter like you’re not going to go out there and throw a bomb to a receiver on the 10-yard line,” Vann said. “So the receivers gotta know exactly what they gotta do. Quarterbacks, o-line, running backs, everything, everybody just really gotta be keyed in and know what’s going on.”

Come week one though, the Gamecocks expect to work out any miscues, with help from the much-improved receiver room.

“Offense is so detailed and you got to have great technique. You got to get your right depths on routes. People don’t realize an interception can be based off one step, being that intricate in detailed with our work. That’s the hard part, really getting those reps down,” Spencer Rattler said. “But we’re doing a great job. I mean, we’re making big explosive plays, moving the ball when we need to. Once we get to where we want to, hopefully that’s where it gets scary.”

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