Muschamp: Jake Bentley displaying ‘a quiet confidence’ in spring
By Will Ogburn
Published:
Coming into last spring, finding a consistent quarterback was priority number one for first-year head coach Will Muschamp. Midway through the first season, he found that signal caller in Jake Bentley, and he says that the 19-year-old sophomore is making strides as a leader this offseason.
Muschamp spoke to the media following Saturday’s scrimmage.
“I don’t know that I would say [Bentley is] vocal, I would say more direction of getting guys aligned, showing guys where the hots are, making sure the protection is set, change the protection, changing the run. I think there’s a quiet confidence in himself which helps our team and helps some of our younger players especially, to understand that this guy understands what we’re trying to do.”
The play of Bentley will be key in a South Carolina offense that features plenty of youth. Receiver Bryan Edwards, as well as running back Rico Dowdle are sophomores, and star recruit OrTre Smith will be entering his first college season. In fact, receiver Deebo Samuel and tight end Hayden Hurst were viewed as young last season, but they look to be the semblance of a veteran presence as juniors.
“Bryan Edwards is doing well. He looked really good today. He’s still in a non-contact jersey but made a couple really nice third-down catches. Deebo (Samuel) looked good. OrTre Smith did some nice things. Some young guys are coming along and doing some nice things for us. Hayden (Hurst) had a really good spring. I thought Jake (Bentley) threw the ball extremely well today. Very accurate in his throws, especially in the third down period I thought looked really sharp directing our offense. I think Rico (Dowdle) has had a very good spring. He’s been able to go through a whole off-season. He’s never been through a full training program as far as just concentrating on getting stronger and all the things we talk about.
Though Muschamp said that he really liked the toughness and physicality of the practices overall, he noted that the defensive front still needs work, a point that he has consistently hit on this spring:
“We’ve got to continue to make some strides up front and being able to affect the quarterback with four guys rushing. We’re struggling to do that. But I do think we’ve improved our team speed defensively. We’re going to have to have some cats come in and help us defensively in the fall that aren’t here yet. That’s always a concern when you leave spring, but that’s where we are.”
He also looked forward to the Gamecocks’ upcoming spring game on April 1st, and he laid out the goals for the game.
“We want to get better. It’s another opportunity to go and play the game. Iron sharpens iron. We’ve got some younger guys we’ve got to find more about, especially in a game-setting situation when there are fans there. We’ve got to be able to have guys that we know going into the fall camp (whether) we need to continue to rep this guy or we need to give a freshman an opportunity. I’ve made some decisions in my mind on defense that we’ve got to give some news guys some opportunities. I’ve seen enough of what I’ve seen with some of these guys.”
With a depth chart as fluid as South Carolina’s has been so far, this team will definitely be worth checking up on as spring progresses.
A former resident of both Baton Rouge and the heart of Crimson Tide country, Will Ogburn handles multimedia content and news coverage for Saturday Down South.
