South Carolina’s secondary hasn’t been the strong point of the Gamecock defense this season, but one young player is standing out and off to a strong start through two games.
That would be John Dixon who, with an injury to Israel Mukuamu this week, stepped up and started at corner against Florida.
He played well, Will Muschamp said, and the Gamecocks this week have to decide whether or not he did enough to retain the starting job.
“We have to look at that. We did both today with Izzy at safety and corner,” Muschamp said. “We have a lot of confidence in John. He had a great training camp, he continues to progress and we’ll make that decision later in the week.”
Mukuamu was coming off a groin injury that took him out of the second half against Tennessee and was limited in two practices heading into the Florida game, which is why he started at safety instead of his usual corner spot.
Against the Gators he played 44 snaps with exactly half at safety and the other half at corner (14 at slot corner, eight at wide corner).
If Dixon does get the starting cornerback role, then Mukuamu could easily stay at safety.
This week the 6-foot-4 corner is closer to 100 percent and splitting first-team reps at safety with the coaching staff potentially having him sliding back to his corner role.
“He’ll play corner this week,” Muschamp said. “We were a little concerned abut them opening up and having him run long speeds on nine balls. We played him at safety in out on the field situation and corner in the red zone because of the height matchups you have with those guys.”
Dixon, meanwhile, played 35 of his 39 snaps Saturday at corner (34 at wide corner) and was extremely effective, finishing with an overall PFF grade of 76.8 and a near-elite coverage grade of 75.7.
He was thrown at five times, allowing just two receptions for 26 yards with two stops.
The sophomore out of Florida did whiff on one big play, nearly coming up with an interception but missing, but the Gamecocks like what they’ve seen from him so far.
“John is a guy we thought played extremely well. He tackled well on the perimeter and made some plays on the ball. We talk about some of those 50-50 balls. He had that opportunity on the sideline and he has to go finish that,” Muschamp said. “That’s a game-changing play to make that pick there. Believe its’ a two-score game there at that time. We ended up making them punt. Those are the plays we have to make.”
South Carolina’s secondary has struggled so far this year, giving up over 500 yards through the air and allowing 8.7 yards per pass attempt.
The Gamecocks (0-2) travel and take on a Vanderbilt team Saturday (noon, SEC Network) averaging 131.5 passing yards and 4.9 yards per attempt on the season.
“The season hasn’t started off how we expected but it’s not determined anything. We’re still looking for a win,” Dixon said. “We’re still going everything we have to do, focusing on us and staying focused to make sure we do what we have to do to go out there and get our first win.”
