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Effort, toughness, discipline pays off for A.J. Turner

Glance at South Carolina's pre-spring running back depth chart and A.J. Turner is nowhere to be found.

But with six days until the Gamecocks season opener at Vanderbilt, the redshirt freshman from Clifton, Va. is in position to take the first carry of Carolina's 2016 season.

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Head coach Will Muschamp said early in camp that Turner had distanced himself as the Gamecocks' best running back and as the focus has changed from preseason camp to Vanderbilt week, the speedy back has shown no signs of relinquishing his lead.

The reason for Turner's climb to the top of the depth chart? It involves the right mindset and a whole lot of extra effort.

"He just brings so much energy," running backs coach Bobby Bentley said of Turner, who regularly stays after practice for extra work. "He plays the way we want our teams to be, with effort, toughness and discipline. He epitomizes what we want to be right now. He sharpens us and he's making our (running back meeting) room better."

Football coaches and scouts often attempt to quantify "talent" with measurables such as 40-yard dashes, shuttle runs and vertical leaps. Effort and determination are even more difficult to quantify, but as technology has increasingly permeated college football, there are ways to attempt to measure that too.

At South Carolina, players are suited in practice with a system that tracks their motion. At a recent practice, Turner was tracked running over 12 mph on 56 different occasions, according to Bentley.

It's a specific example of what Bentley means when he says Turner brings energy to the running backs. And a perfect example of the mindset that the former three-star prospect brings to every practice, workout and meeting.

"My goal was just to get better in whatever I was doing, in drills, in individual, in special teams, offense," said Turner, who has worked with the first team for almost all of camp. "Getting first team reps, that felt good, but it was never really like, 'I have to have this,' my goal is I'm going to work as hard as I can and where I'm going to be at, that's where I'm going to be at. I'm just going to give it my all on the field."

Despite the fact that he's never taken a college fooball snap, both Muschamp and Bentley have expressed complete trust in Turner's ability to be Carolina's top back. South Carolina's three open practices gave onlookers a quick glimpse at Turner's quickness and shiftiness as a back who can make defenders miss in open space.

But there is one question that always seems to arise: can the 5-foot-10, 195-pounder withstand the grueling grind that comes with being an SEC running back?

Vanderbilt's running back, the similarly sized Ralph Webb, offers hope that a running back Turner's size can take an SEC beating and keep on rolling. With a similar season to his last two, Webb will be the Commodores all-time leading rusher.

Turner admits that he'd like to keep adding weight, but also believes in his ability to stay healthy.

"I believe so," Turner said. "I can't really predict the future, I'm just going to go out there and give it all I can do what I can do. If I get dinged up, then it's going to be a next guy up and I know they're going to be ready and they're going to be prepared because Coach Bentley does a great job of making sure everybody knows what they're doing."

To Turner's point, he's not the only running back that's going to carry the football for Carolina. The Gamecocks, like most teams in this era, will take a by-committee approach to their carries with David Williams and Rod Talley also factoring in.

But Turner, who admits that he's slightly nervous but mostly excited, is slated to take the first snap, completing his ascension, from not listed, to the top of the depth chart.

Proof that adhering to the South Carolina program's new motto -- effort, toughness and discipline -- pays off.

"It's definitely a different feeling knowing that the season is coming up and our first game is on September 1, so it's right around the corner," Turner said. "Just knowing that we've been working our butt off in the winter, right when the coaches came, in the spring, in the summer, and even now in fall camp -- probably the hardest thing I've ever done, 15 hour days -- I just know that all that work that we put in is going to show in the game."

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