South Carolina Football: 10 players the Gamecocks will need to see step up after the Bye Week

10 players South Carolina Football must have step up after the Bye Week:
Punter Kai Kroeger

Kai Kroeger entered the 2023 season as a favorite to win the Ray Guy award and was considered by many to be the top punter in all of college football. To this point in the year, he simply has not been that.

To be clear, Kroeger has not been bad this season, especially after a pretty good showing against Tennessee last weekend. However, he has not been his elite self. Kroeger currently sits 22nd in the country in average punt distance. That’s a good number, but it is not a Kai Kroeger number.

He also has not been the same type of difference-maker throwing the football this season. Kroeger helped flip several games last season with his combination of booming punts and execution on fakes. The Gamecocks have missed on two different 2-point conversions in which Kroeger threw the ball and have just one fake punt attempt (a conversion) this season.

Without an extraordinary effort from their star punter, the Gamecocks would not have beaten Clemson last season, and he played an instrumental role in holding off Texas A&M in a close game in which the Aggies threatened to come back from their early deficit.

Simply put, the Gamecocks need their star punter to be great moving forward, and South Carolina football fans have every reason to expect that he will be.