Gamecocks Football 2012: 22 positions 22 days; Special Teams

Sure, special teams isn’t a position on a football team, but it is an important part of one, and for Gamecocks, it could be the make or break unit on the team in 2o12.

Basically the only question marks that don’t exist on the Gamecocks special  teams are at kick and punt returner.

Bruce Ellington will be running back kickoffs and Ace Sanders will run back punts.

Other than that, it’s really anyone’s guess.

Adam Yates and Landon Ard can both do kickoffs. Yates is a senior, so he probably gets the nod when the season starts.

Yates, Ard and freshman Nick St. Germain are all battling for the starting place kicking job. I’ve heard St. Germain is the most accurate in practice, but he hasn’t performed well in scrimmages or against pressure.

Ard walked on last year and was redshirted, and had a pretty good Spring practice. Yates is a senior who hasn’t kicked a football since his freshman season.

I think this will be Yates’ job to lose once the season starts. If he loses it, I think it goes to St. Germain. He’s the first placekicker the Gamecocks actually recruited since Ryan Succop.

Patrick Fish and Mike Williamson are battling to become the starting punter. Williams is the only one of the two with game experience. He punted at Columbia (NYC) in the Ivy League before transferring to South Carolina.

Gamecock fans have seen exactly what a poor special teams can do to a good team. Kickoffs and punts ran back for touchdowns in years past have killed momentum and won games. Missed kicks, extra points and really bad punts have been relatively common place at Carolina for a while.

If the Gamecocks can’t overcome these mistakes, it’ll be hard for them to end up in Atlanta at the end of the season.