The more I dig into this South Carolina football team, the more I like it.
I’ve talked a lot about LaNorris Sellers. I’ve talked about Dylan Stewart. I’ve talked about Nyck Harbor and the kind of difference those guys can make in a football game.
But there is another part of this roster that I don’t think we’re talking about nearly enough.
This is an old football team.
And I mean that as a tremendous compliment.
When you go through the South Carolina roster and stop looking strictly at recruiting rankings and start looking at years in college, you find a roster loaded with seniors, redshirt seniors and experienced juniors.
That’s important.
In today’s college football, I think we sometimes get so caught up in stars, NIL money and the transfer portal that we forget something pretty basic: 22- and 23-year-old men usually have an advantage over 18- and 19-year-old kids.
They’ve been in college weight rooms longer. They’ve been through spring practices. They’ve played in hostile stadiums. They’ve taken SEC hits. They’ve been through fourth quarters when everybody is tired. They’ve screwed up, learned from it and played another Saturday.
There is no substitute for that.
Look at the offensive line
This is probably where it matters most.
South Carolina has seven redshirt seniors in the offensive line room: Carter Miller, Nolan Hay, Jacarrius Peak, Emmanuel Kojo Poku, Dayne Arnett, Seth Smith and Armando Nieves.
Seven.
Then you add juniors and redshirt juniors like Hank Purvis, Ashton Mozone, Vincent Chen, Markee Anderson and Josiah Thompson.
That is a grown-man offensive line room.
I’ve been around football long enough to know that you can have all the skill talent in the world, but if you can’t block people, none of it matters.
And offensive line may be the position where age and physical maturity matter more than anywhere else on the field.
A 23-year-old offensive lineman who has spent four or five years in a college strength program is simply a different physical animal than an 18-year-old freshman.
That doesn’t guarantee South Carolina will have a great offensive line.
But it gives them a hell of a better chance.
Sellers isn’t the young quarterback anymore
Here’s another thing that I think gets overlooked.
LaNorris Sellers is a redshirt junior.
We still tend to talk about Sellers like he’s the exciting young quarterback with all this potential.
He’s not that guy anymore.
He’s an experienced SEC quarterback entering the portion of his career where everything should begin slowing down for him.
He’s seen the blitzes. He’s seen disguised coverages. He’s played in big games. He’s been hit. He’s made mistakes.
Now he gets to take that experience and combine it with one of the most impressive physical skill sets in college football.
That’s when quarterbacks can become dangerous.
There is experience around the stars
Nyck Harbor is a senior.
Jayden Gibson and DJ Black are redshirt seniors. Nitro Tuggle and Mazeo Bennett are juniors.
Defensively, South Carolina has veterans scattered throughout the lineup and, just as importantly, they have experienced players surrounding one of the most disruptive defensive players in the country in Dylan Stewart.
Stewart himself is now a junior.
Think about that for a second.
We’re no longer talking about the freshman phenom.
We’re talking about a physically mature junior who already knows what SEC football looks like.
That’s scary.
The portal has changed what “experienced” means
There’s another point that needs to be made.
I don’t particularly care whether all these players spent their entire careers at South Carolina.
Experience is experience.
If a kid spent three years at Tennessee, Georgia, Florida State or somewhere else before coming to Columbia, those years don’t disappear when he puts on a Gamecock jersey.
He has still spent those years in a college weight room.
He has still practiced against college football players.
He has still sat in meeting rooms.
He has still played on Saturdays.
South Carolina has used the portal not simply to acquire talent, but to acquire age and physical maturity.
There is a difference.
Why I keep liking this team more
I’ve said before that I think South Carolina has the pieces to be better than a lot of people expect.
This is another reason why.
They have difference-makers.
Sellers can change a football game.
Stewart can wreck one.
Harbor is a physical mismatch that very few teams can duplicate.
But stars alone don’t win championships.
Football games are usually decided by the other 19 guys.
And when I look at those other guys on this South Carolina roster, I see a lot of players who have been around college football for a long time.
I see an old offensive line.
I see veteran receivers.
I see experienced defensive players.
I see a quarterback who isn’t learning how to play the position anymore.
I see a grown-man football team.
Does that guarantee 10 wins?
Of course not.
Does it guarantee South Carolina is going to the College Football Playoff?
No.
But I’ll tell you what it does.
It makes me much more comfortable believing this team can handle the grind of an SEC schedule.
Young teams can be wildly talented and still be inconsistent. They can look like world beaters one Saturday and freshmen the next.
Older teams generally don’t scare as easily.
They don’t panic as quickly.
They understand how to prepare.
And when you’re playing a one-possession game in the fourth quarter against another good SEC football team, sometimes the difference isn’t recruiting stars.
Sometimes it’s having a bunch of 22- and 23-year-old men who have been there before.
South Carolina has a lot of those guys.
And the more I study this roster, the more convinced I become that the age and maturity of this football team may be one of the biggest reasons the Gamecocks have a chance to do something special this season.
