SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL
When Dakereon Joyner signed up to play wide receiver after losing the backup quarterback battle, he probably didn’t think he’d back to taking a lot of quarterback snaps as quickly as he did.
But, Jake Bentley goes down in game one with a season-ending injury, elevating Ryan Hilinski to the starter and Joyner one play away from being the team’s No. 1 while still taking receiver reps in practice.
“It’s definitely a grind. But I can handle it,” Joyner said. “I think I can handle a lot of things. That tells me a lot about myself. I’m a very smart guy in terms of everything on the field. I have to be able to handle that.”
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Joyner might resemble less of a football player during practice and more of a pinball, bouncing between the receiver and quarterback groups to take reps with the first and second teams daily.
It’s not like a college class schedule where he can focus on one position Monday-Wednesday-Friday and the other Tuesday-Thursday. He has to split time equally between both every day or else he might miss something.
"It is difficult. It's very difficult to be fair first off with, I would say Dakereon, because there's some things at wide out that we spent about week and a half really concentrating with him on in preparation for the season and then obviously we had to switch some gears,” Will Muschamp said. “He's handled it beautifully like he does everything. It's hard to get the time with Dan Werner, the time with Bryan McClendon, the basic fundamentals at the receiver position, which is something that's totally new to him as far as those things.”
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He’s handled it all in stride, sticking around after losing the initial competition for the backup job, moving positions and now splitting time to try and making a bit of an impact this year.
He had 69 yards of total offense the first two games with a touchdown but had just one touch in the Alabama game, a 13-yard reception, which didn’t bug him much.
“As long as my boys are eating and we’re productive on the field,” he said, “it’s not a problem at all.”
But Joyner isn’t the only quarterback spending time with the receivers this season with the team’s emergency No. 3 quarterback Jay Urich doing the same.
Urich is a little different than Joyner since he’s working exclusively at receiver this season and spending a little time with the quarterbacks just to stay up to date on the game plan in case both Hilinski and Joyner go down in a game.
During the week, he’s taking most, if not all, of his reps at receiver and practicing at quarterback one day.
“I’m the third guy,” Urich said. “I’m getting a lot of reps on Sunday practices and preparing so if something happens I’ll be ready to play quarterback.”
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It’s a little bit of a balancing act for South Carolina, trying to get their playmakers on the field in Joyner and Urich but doing their best to keep them healthy in case they need to take snaps at quarterback.
“We feel like he can make a huge contribution to our football team at the receiver position as well as the backup quarterback,” Muschamp said of Joyner and trying to keep him healthy. “That’s a discussion we’ve had.”
