Gamecocks think Horn, Mukuamu duo is 'going to be great'
Will Muschamp has a saying about playing time: if you’re good enough, you’ll play; if you’re the best, you’ll start.
Over his two seasons so far, that’s meant freshmen, transfers, really anyone he thinks can help his team win.
Coming into this season that could mean two cornerbacks—Jaycee Horn and Israel Mukuamu—who have stepped on campus and already made some positive impressions on their teammates could be in line for some early snaps.
“They look very good. Like they’re going to be great; not good, great,” Steven Montac said. ”I see them leaving their junior year. They’re very good.”
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But, aside from the hype, the two should be factors in South Carolina’s defensive backfield rotation this season and for the foreseeable future.
Mukuamu has been on campus the longest, enrolling in January, and is one of the more unique cornerbacks the Gamecocks have had in recent memory. He’s incredibly long, listed at 6-foot-4, and Montac said he could even be an inch taller in pads.
Horn, who enrolled over the summer, has already been impressing the coaching staff and earning some first-team snaps this preseason. With the Gamecocks still deciding their safety rotation and putting cornerback Nick Harvey back there, it gives Horn a chance to jump in with the first string.
“He has some great opportunities and he’s repping a bunch. It’s very exciting for him and very exciting for us,” defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson said. “You start talking about in terms of developing a guy for the season, that’s a big-time deal. You have to practice and he’s getting a bunch of reps.”
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Horn was part of the defensive rotation this week as the Gamecocks had two scrimmages, including one big play against arguably South Carolina’s best player.
“He had a big knockdown on a deep ball against Deebo,” Muschamp said. “When you cover that guy, you’re covering a really good football player.”
The Gamecocks haven’t been shy since Muschamp took over about playing and rotating in a bunch of cornerbacks; just last year they started five different players at one of their three corner spots.
So it’s not out of the realm of possibility to see Horn and Mukuamu out on the field playing big roles this season, with Horn already getting comparisons to two-time All-American and three-time All-Pro corner Patrick Peterson.
“I don’t see why they shouldn’t. Jaycee is very, very good. He’s like a young Pat P out there. You don’t see too many 6-foot-4 corners,” Montac said of Mukuamu. “You don’t see that much. He can move, too.”
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So both Horn and Mukuamu are playing their way into snaps this season, and Horn already taking some snaps with the first-team during camp.
There are some expectations building around those two players with a few of their teammates thinking the duo will be one of the best in the conference sooner rather than later.
“They’re some problems for the whole SEC in the future,” cornerback Rashad Fenton said.
