Gamecock players taking interesting route to get some extra sleep this camp

Steven Montac’s day is just like everyone else’s on the Gamecock football team.

He’ll wake up early in the morning, practice around 9 a.m., go through film and meetings all day but, when the day’s over, he doesn’t go home.

He finds a nice little place in the football complex to settle down and get some sleep before waking up the next morning to do it all over again.

“Straight up air mattress. I got a blanket and pillow,” Montac said. “That’s fine with me.”

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Montac’s one of the “large number,” according to Danny Fennell, of players that spend camp sleeping in the facility, spending all of their time around the program instead of going home and sleeping in their own beds.

They find different places to get some sleep. Montac started out sleeping in one of the defensive meeting rooms but a few other players started crashing in there so recently he's found the running backs' room the quietest.

The coaches provide them with mattresses scattered around meeting rooms in Williams-Brice Stadium for players to grab a quick nap during down time or, like Montac, spend the night before having to be back at the stadium early.

“There’s no reason to leave. You got come back right in the morning. You can’t leave once you’re here,” he said. “It’s not bad.”

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Montac said staying in the facility almost 24/7 gives him a chance to get some extra minutes of sleep—he doesn’t have to waste time traveling back and forth to his house—and watch more film with a few of the younger safeties on the roster.

But it’s not a new tradition for the Gamecocks. This has been going on at least four years, back when guys like Bryson Allen-Williams were freshmen.

It’s evolved over that time, with players finding new and improved ways to get some much-needed shuteye during the camp grind.

Tight ends Jacob August and Kiel Pollard bought themselves a tent and pitched it in the players’ lounge this fall and have been using that as a makeshift apartment since camp started at the beginning of the month.

“It’s just being in camp mode. You got to be locked in. You can wake up at 6:30 and you’re right here at the time you have to be in the building. A lot of guys sleep here,” Allen-Williams said. “I did that a little bit earlier.”

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Allen-Williams said he’s spent a couple nights his freshman and sophomore years sleeping in the facility but has gradated from that, but he did say a lot of guys do spend the night in preparation for this season, which starts Sept. 1.

Jake Bentley did it a little last season getting ready for his first full year as the starting quarterback, and Allen-Williams it gives guys staying the night a chance to bond a little bit and build some chemistry before games start.

But staying over isn’t just left to the players. Sometimes coaches work incredibly long hours and have to crash for a little bit in their offices, too.

“If I got out of here at 5 a.m. and had to be back here at 5:30, I would go home, touch home and come back,” linebackers coach Coleman Hutzler said. “I can’t afford to do that.”