Published Apr 6, 2020
How Muschamp is running his program during COVID-19 pandemic
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Collyn Taylor  •  GamecockScoop
Beat Writer
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@collyntaylor

Will Muschamp isn’t used to having this much down time at this time of the year.

Normally, he’d be finishing up spring practice and transition right back into full-time recruiting, having those 12 to 16-hour days coaches are famous for having.

Now, though, he’s having to do all of that while quarantine has kept him at home.

Because of that, it’s required him to tweak how he runs his program while still hopefully preparing his team for football this fall.

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“As a team we’re utilizing this week four hours, which we’re allowed by the Southeastern Conference,” he said. “Last week we took install one from spring, which is day one install, and went through that the entire week for about 30 minutes with our players four times. We’ll increase that this week and go through install two, three, four and five which will take us to May 1, which is our five installations of spring.”

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Zoom is a pretty popular tool for the Gamecocks, who are maxing out their time on the online video teleconference service with multiple weekly meetings.

Players have position meetings roughly four times a day to meet with position coaches and coordinators to continue the install of Mike Bobo’s new offense or Travaris Robinson’s defense.

The Gamecocks are able to start instruction for four hours a week as the introduce the concepts they didn’t get to before spring practice was essentially canceled.

They’re also using a service called Learn To Win, an app allowing coaches to quiz players on different things they’re talking about.

“You’re able to interact and send test questions and players can get immediate feedback. We’re quizzing them about day one install about a certain front, run game or protection. We’re able to interact with our players and they’re able to see if the answer’s correct or not correct,” Muschamp said. “It’s been really beneficial.”

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Muschamp himself has been getting in front of his laptop camera, joining different virtual positional meetings and conversations with his staff twice a week to talk about the goings on while quarantined.

The focus, he said, for the coaches outside of installing offensive and defensive schemes has been on “working on opponents, ourselves and offseason projects and recruiting.”

Coaches meet almost daily as offensive and defensive staffs along with those biweekly all staff meetings.

Players are also getting weekly meetings with Director of Development Connor Shaw to focus on the mental health side of things while the leadership team is meeting with Dr. Kevin Elko to discuss leadership in a crisis.

Shaw’s focused on keeping mental spirits up among a group of close to 100 football players who are stuck inside without able to play football for really the first time in their lives.

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“Social distancing is all about physical distancing, so it’s about making sure our team is staying connected. Connor’s doing a great job of that,” Muschamp said. “Connor’s come up with having a Madden tournament and some really good ideas to keep our guys connected.”

Muschamp and the Gamecocks got five practices in before spring practice was shut down due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Right now Muschamp said they're preparing to play this fall “until someone tells us otherwise."

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