South Carolina Football Offseason Autopsy, Part 2: Grading the Defense
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina Football Offseason Autopsy:
Grading the Secondary
C-. Defensive coordinator Clayton White didn’t do his secondary any favors this season. Consistently putting safeties in man coverage is not a good way to win football games, and it is not a good way to instill confidence in players, either. Nick Emmanwori, DQ Smith, and Jalon Kilgore are safeties but all were asked to play nickel corner, too. Marcellas Dial had a pretty good year in man coverage, but O’Donnell Fortune’s year was very up-and-down. The safeties tackled well, but the difficulties in coverage spilled over into their over-the-top zone responsibilities at times. Jalon Kilgore had a great start to the season, and Nick Emmanwori was excellent to close the year.. Defense. South Carolina Gamecocks. DEFENSIVE BACKS
A lot of South Carolina football fans felt bad for the secondary this season. Not only did they struggle, but they were not put in situations to succeed very often.
Defensive coordinator Clayton White put his run-stopping safeties in man coverage over and over again to disastrous results. Two opposing receivers set career highs while operating primarily in the slot against these safeties-playing-nickel, and three more were close to doing the same.
As was true with the rest of the defense, the defensive backfield was much better in the 3-3-5. Nick Emmanwori and Jalon Kilgore were better when asked to play zone (something safeties should be doing), and Marcellas Dial was good in man coverage to end his Gamecock career.
Young corners Judge Collier and Emory Floyd had to get a lot of snaps this season, and the experience they got was valuable, even if it came with some struggles. O’Donnell Fortune had stretches of play where he was as “sticky” as Dial and other stretches where he looked lost.
For a good chunk of the season, South Carolina football was in the bottom-10 of the entire country in pass defense, an obvious indictment of the secondary, despite the poor coaching that made some of that possible.
The Gamecock defense also dropped a ridiculous amount of potential interceptions, and snagging a couple of those passes could have gone a long way in salvaging this season (and this grade). Nonetheless, the secondary’s underperforming games outnumbered their good ones, and the grade can’t be a good one even with the late-season improvements.
South Carolina Football Offseason Autopsy, Part 1: Grading the Offense. light. Related Story