Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, baseball and football both add to their rosters and also which football position group is of most concern. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:54] Okay.
[00:00:56] Welcome to episode 394 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope you all have had a great week. Gamecocks. I mean, World cup fever has taken over. The level of patriotism going on right now is, quite frankly, probably second to 1776, because you have a US men's national team that is moving onto the group stage. You have America 250 right around the corner. Fourth of July, summer's heating up. Oh, my goodness. Like, this is just electric. It is electric. And I know I'm here to talk about college sports, but you can't not talk about this stuff as a sports fan. And hand up, I am the guy that every four years, I care about soccer. You know, maybe I'll get into the Euros, you know, sort of on the side, you know, that's what in the two years in between, whatever it may be.
[00:01:59] So I'm far from an expert, but it's fun to be atop the group for once because it always feels like USA Soccer is sort of chasing, and to be feeling like you're going into this next round better than you have in the past is just exciting to see. And, you know, we'll. We'll see where it goes from there, right? So I digress here. Got some fun stuff to talk to y' all about today. Gamecocks related, but fun. First, I have my handy dandy Gamecock trivia question for y'. All.
[00:02:31] Here we go.
[00:02:32] In 2011, the South Carolina baseball team made history by not just winning the College World Series, but by doing what in the NCAA Tournament?
[00:02:43] Whoa.
[00:02:45] That is a fantastic question. I have no idea. Is it going to be, like, come from behind victories?
[00:02:53] In fact, kind of the opposite. There they went unbeaten. That's right. Again, the Gamecocks were the first team to go 10 and oh. In tournament play. Yeah. Yeah. Those teams were so fricking good, man.
[00:03:04] So fricking good. And that's what, you know, has made the last couple of years here tough. Right. Just because we know what can be done here. And the standard was so good for so long at USC for baseball, but that's a perfect segue to talk about some baseball roster updates. There's been a lot of action going on, and I got two names, two players that I'm going to drop with y' all and talk about. But there has been plenty of action both on the recruiting trail. You've got some transfer portal updates. Kevin Schnall and his staff have hit the ground running and then some, and it's exciting to see. I harped on it last episode. I'll do some less harping on it now. But he's doing everything that you want to see, only like confirming that he's the guy for the job right now and he's getting after it in a big way.
[00:03:56] And this was, this pickup here, I think to me was like, okay, like, we are, like, really doing this here. It's one thing to bring some Coastal players with you. That was expected and welcomed, by the way. Very welcome to take some of the guys that helped build those teams that you've coached at Coastal, bring them to South Carolina. They know what you're all about.
[00:04:19] But when you can start bringing in coveted players from the transfer portal from other schools, that sends a message. And that also tells me that he's serious about winning here by bringing in guys with that power four experience. So first off here, shortstop J.D. stein has transferred to USC from Wake Forest.
[00:04:41] While at Wake, he hit.266 with 41 RBI. It was interesting to see his batting average actually went up when he went into conference play. He's a young player, he's an underclassman, so maybe he was just getting experience.
[00:04:57] But that's a really encouraging sign that he stepped his game up while going against tougher competition. You love 41 RBI, but also I thought it was interesting. He stole 13 bases and out of, I think, 15 attempts.
[00:05:11] And that is a underrated piece of someone's game. And as a player develops and gets bigger, faster and stronger, that is a weapon that you're going to want to use. And that is something that we're going to see a lot more of with Kevin Schnall talked about it when he got hired. Schnall ball is putting pressure on opposing defenses, and it's not trying to get that blast to drive a bunch of guys home. Like, sure, you're going to have guys that can hit for power, but you're going to see some small ball. You're going to see guys stealing bases. You're going to see some bunts. You know, you're going to see the hit and run. And when you have a guy who can hit for average and then do something when he's on the bases, especially when you talk about a position like shortstop, someone that can grow and you know that can Be your general on the field and you have an experienced catcher coming in as well. So that's a great pickup. Very happy there. And then pitcher Jordan Stevens is transferring from Georgia. He's had an up and down collegiate career, but he has a big arm. Tops off at about 100.
[00:06:18] I think he has primarily come out of the bullpen, but from what I've seen, he's going to be given an opportunity to start, so we'll see where that goes. But bringing in players with Power 4 experience, absolutely love to see it. And with how the roster was when Monary, or I should say rather Monty Lee was not retained, you really just need to fill out everywhere, really. And so I'll absolutely take a guy. You know, it's like you're taking a flyer on him. Right.
[00:06:52] You know, he's had some good years, he's had some tough stretches, had some good stretches. So excited for Jordan Stevens there. So all in all, baseball is doing some exciting things and there's a lot of updates that sometimes I don't cover on the show, but just staying attuned to my social media and social media in general, you will get filled in. Absolutely.
[00:07:11] And then changing gears a little bit here to football, but we're still talking roster updates here. It's been an interesting time for South Carolina recruiting in years past. June was really a month where the staff cooked. They do a really, really good job on official visits and you tend to get a lot of those in June. When we talk about the off season, it was a little bit of a slow patch.
[00:07:37] If you are one to look at recruiting rankings, Carolina was nowhere near the top 25.
[00:07:45] We missed out on a couple of guys that it was public we were really going after, missed out on, you know, another big school and whatnot. But slowly over this last week, really two weeks, Beamer started tweeting out some more welcome homes. He's dropped hints that he's gotten good phone calls and things like that.
[00:08:04] And I think we've had a lot of silent commitments over that last week or two and now they're starting to come to light in addition to getting some guys on campus and getting them to commit. So I'm going to highlight two for y' all here. Four star cornerback Kelvin Millington. He's out of Georgia. He chose South Carolina over Texas Tech and Virginia Tech. He's long, lanky. I think he's 63 or 64 depending on where you look. That is huge for a defensive back. And so if you give Taurean Gray the opportunity to coach a player like that up, he can absolutely develop into a stud for you. And we've seen it at South Carolina, the importance of having elite defenders in the defensive backfield. So just continuing to build that pipeline. And then on the other side of the ball here, four star Ivan Lewis committed to South Carolina after flipping his commitment from Kentucky. So shout out to that. That's got welcome to the sec, whoever. Kentucky's new coaches love that, you know, and that's. That's got to be an instance of Lewis committed to Kentucky. Was probably debating about where to go, and our staff stayed on him, and ultimately he made the decision to come to the Gamecocks, which you absolutely love. So things have heated up on the recruiting front and it's good to see because as much discussion as there is in the transfer portal and things like that, any college coach that's worth their salt will tell you that the foundation of the program is always going to be high school recruiting. Shane Beamer has said that since the transfer portal has become a thing, I think he's embraced it more and more each year and has used it different ways. Beamer has. But you still see a lot of progress on the recruiting trail. And, you know, you're looking at recruits who are talking to new position coaches in some instances, right? Running back, offensive line and whatnot. So some of these will take time to develop, but you've seen some great pickups in the last two weeks. And I think we're going to find out even more over the next few days with some of these welcome homes that get tweeted out somewhat mysteriously who then decide to go public with their announcement. So welcome home to a lot of guys across different sports. Welcome home to South Carolina. But then sticking with football here and sticking with my off season talks about the team and building up towards that first game. Last week, I discussed position groups that I was particularly excited about and it was hard not to list too many.
[00:10:52] But I want to do the other side of the coin here because we have to be realistic about all of this, right? And we have to think critically about our team and our roster just because. And that's what fans do and that's what I'm going to do here. I don't like thinking about the negative side of things. Y' all know me, I'm an optimist. I have been accused of wearing garnet glasses from time to time. And so what? Garnet's a great color. So nonetheless, here I got three groups here that I want to talk about that I Think the better term I'm going to say is that I have questions about that I feel maybe a little less sure of than the ones I talked about last episode. So first group here is tight end. Now you have Brady Hunt. And Beamer has gone on record this offseason about saying that he's a player that maybe not enough people talk about for how good he is and how hard he works and things like that. He is an experienced guy. He's been with the program for a few years now.
[00:11:50] I think he's good. Like, I think he's a good tight end. He can do pretty much everything for you.
[00:11:57] The question I have with Brady Hunt is can he stay healthy? He's been at South Carolina. This is going to be his third year, if I'm not mistaken. And every year he has missed time. Right. And so for a guy who now is full fledged, like your leader in that group, can you stay healthy for every game? Right. The best ability is availability. That's my biggest concern with Brady Hunt. But when he's on the field, he does everything the right way. So I feel good about him there. The reason I'm bringing up this group is because of depth. There's just question marks here, like who is behind Brady Hunt. Mo Brown is exciting, but we all want to see him with the ball in his hands more. He rocks the cowboy collar and I think sometimes the cowboy collar blinds us because he just looks so badass and he's freaking jacked. But there's a reason why he's been on the team for so long and he just hasn't gotten those touches. He can do some really good things for you. He's a great special teamer. He can play in that unique kind of h back role for you. I think that's a great spot. I think though, for when we talk about traditional tight end things, he just isn't quite as polished. So then you go around and you're looking at the group and yeah, like you bring in Max Drag from ucf, I think that's a good pickup.
[00:13:25] There's just a lot of youth in this group, really, outside of Mo Brown and Brady Hunt Drag. Yes. But you know, he hasn't been with the program as long.
[00:13:35] So that's a, that's, that's a question mark for me. Is, is the tight ends now, with that being said, I think we are going to see the tight ends be used very differently than they have been around Colombia for the last few years.
[00:13:48] Shane Beamer had wanted to feature the tight end and I know he says he lets the offensive coordinators do their thing, but he has been on record saying that that he wants to feature the tight end at South Carolina. And I think sometimes that bled into offensive game plans at times, which not necessarily a bad thing. Like when you have a guy like Josh Simon on your roster, that's great, get him the ball.
[00:14:15] But now I think Kendall Briles, he's going to use the tight ends in that blocking role in that, you know, really short route stuff. So probably going to see them featured last. So if you have some question marks there and you have coach Elliot who's going to be really fine tuning those guys, particularly with the blocking scheme, I think we can live with it. So if you get a healthy Brady Hunt, Max Dragon, Mo Brown, you'll be all right.
[00:14:40] But this is a question mark that I have for the team.
[00:14:46] The next group I have is the offensive line and it's question marks because we really don't know what it's going to look like from the standpoint of how it's going to gel. Right. This position group has been a problem for us at nauseum for years. The good news is we have an actual adult in the room coaching them and coach Clem. And he has the experience, he has his system, he works incredibly well with Briles. He's been with him for years and they're going to be on the same page. None of this like trying to figure out what works best for this oc. Does this offensive line coach have the experience? None of that. Now you did a really good job in bringing in some guys from the portal, right. Carter Miller, Hank Purvis, Peake, Pogu. Right. Peak, of course, being being hurt right now.
[00:15:37] Nolan Hay, you know. But the question is, can these guys gel and can they gel rather quickly now you still have some guys on your roster who you feel pretty good about. You know, a guy like Marquis Anderson. You also have Gray, Shed, Sarat I like.
[00:15:55] But again, I think to me it's a question of depth. Like, yes, there's some other guys you brought in, like a Dane Arnett, but. And there's. And there are some other younger guys too. But I think that's when it gets a little murky. It's like you brought in a good group of transfers, you brought in experience, which is exactly what Shane Beamer needed to do in this instance.
[00:16:24] But can they gel together quickly? And you're already dealing with an injury in Peak.
[00:16:31] It would not surprise me if he doesn't play the first game or Two, even just out of an abundance of caution.
[00:16:39] So then you got to bring him up to speed.
[00:16:41] But just in general, we've seen how grueling the SEC can be and sometimes your offensive line gets banged up. We've had seasons where they're, they're healthy, they just can't protect the quarterback for whatever reason, coaching.
[00:16:58] But we've also seen seasons where they catch the injury bug and knock on wood, that's not the case.
[00:17:05] But the question mark I have, and the concern that I have is how much depth really is there that can play to a good quality and the caliber rather of the SEC behind, behind your starters, really. Shedser and I like, you know, you feel confident, gray, but he's a freshman, right? So there's just these question marks, right? And that, that's the whole point of this segment is like, I don't feel rock solid about our offensive line. I don't think many people do. I feel much, much better about the coaching, but nonetheless, these question marks still remain.
[00:17:42] And then the last group that I have here is the specialists, particularly the kicker, because we don't really have one.
[00:17:50] It's kind of up in the air, like, is it Max Kelly, is it Mason Love?
[00:17:55] Is it Belafont? Like, that's probably who it's going to be, right? But nonetheless, I think there's going to be a full fledged kicking competition getting ready for this season. And we've seen how not having that position ironed out can hurt you. Now, look, you bring in, you know, Belafont, like, you know, he is a transfer that you bring in. That's what he did. So, you know, you probably are penciling him in. Mason Love is capable, you know, so who's going to be that kicker? Is it going to be a situation where you have a kicker that you feel confident in, 40 and in, and then you have a guy maybe from closer to 50, do you do it that way? So the specialists are a concern and some of that has to do with youth, but some of it is just still a question mark nonetheless. So stuff to ponder and stuff to think about. And as we get closer to the season, it's important to keep some of this in mind when we talk about managing expectations and like, what game is going to be more important? Who can exploit these, like, you know, offensive line? Like, yeah, that might take a game or two or three to gel, but okay, by the time you get through Mississippi State, you should have an idea about how the offensive line is looking. Right? You should have a pretty good idea about what your place taker situation is going to look like by the end of the second game. You would hope, you know, and then hopefully tight ends. The offensive scheme works for our depth, but nonetheless all things to consider. All good stuff here with that y'. All. That wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecox. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecocks. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'. All. Go Cox.
