How South Carolina is approaching special teams this week

This preseason, Will Muschamp and special teams coordinator Kyle Krantz mentioned the Gamecocks devoting more times to that unit before the season.

After Week 1 and a few special teams mishaps, the Gamecocks seem to be spending a little more time on that at least early in the week preparing for Florida.

“Today we actually had a lot of extra periods for special teams,” Jammie Robinson said. “We had to lock in with the details and execute.”

The Gamecocks started two freshmen in Mitch Jeter on Kai Kroeger, who had some growing pains in their first game; Jeter misplaced a ball on a kickoff that resulted in a 40-yard return while Kroeger averaged juts 35.2 yards per punt, including just a 27-yard punt in the fourth quarter.

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They had two miscue in the punt game with Robinson fair catching a punt on the four yard-line then the late game one where the ball touched Cam Smith and didn’t allow the Gamecock offense back on the field with a chance to win the game.

Ask Muschamp and he’ll say some of that falls on the players—Jeter and Kroeger have to kick better individually—and the Gamecocks communicated well on the final punt but execution was off.

The focus this week will continue to be to execute and improve so those mistakes in the punt game don’t happen again.

“A far as practice as concerned, we did more live work on teams than we’ve ever done for the simple reason of going into the first game having new specialists, having a new punt returner, having a new kick returner,” Muschamp said. “We have to continue to work and improve and what happened at the end of the game can’t happen. It cost us an opportunity for us to win the game.”

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Robinson, who logged 679 snaps as a freshman, said on Tuesday he had a chance to talk with Cam Smith, offering some words of advice to the true freshman that struggled in his first real career action.

“He just has to have short term memory in the defensive back room. Anything can happen,” Robinson said. “You can give up a play then the next play you can strap it up and create a turnover. You have to have short term memory and move to the next play.”

During a game week things look a lot different than training camp. A typical week in practice has the Gamecocks repping their kickoff units—both kickoff coverage and return—on Tuesday and Thursday with usually three or four reps.

They’ll also work on punt coverage and return all three days of padded practice in the week.

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“We do work on special teams,” Parker said. “I haven’t seen any other team’s practices so I cant attest to how we are comparatively, but we do spend a lot of time on special teams. I think it’s something that can be an advantage for us.”