South Carolina Gamecocks football position battle breakdown: outside linebackers

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Published Jul 3, 2020

Position battle breakdown: outside linebacker

Collyn Taylor • GamecockScoop

Beat Writer

@collyntaylor

The Gamecocks have their middle linebacker set for the next two years in Ernest Jones and what looks likes their outside linebackers, but nothing is officially set and Will Muschamp always likes to say every position is up for grabs.

That means South Carolina will be tasked with figuring out their two outside linebackers before the scheduled start of the season with plenty of good options to choose from.

Sherrod Greene

Greene is coming off silently his best and most consistent season at South Carolina yet, putting up 35 tackles put posting career-highs for tackles for loss (6.5) and posted his best Pro Football Focus grade of his career at 69.7 overall (and 74.3 rush defense grade).

Coming into the season he should be the likely choice to win the WILL linebacker, which is linebacker outside of the MIKE that logs the most snaps defensively.

He's listed at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds and should see a lot of snaps this fall as a senior.

Damani Staley

Staley is probably the odds-on favorite to win the SAM linebacker spot as a rotational player over the last two seasons. After playing sparingly as a freshman, he's played in 21 games the last two years with 53 tackles and two tackles for loss.

He's coming off a year where he saw his production go down a tick in terms of games played and total tackles but his experience and skill set should give the Gamecocks their starting SAM this season.

Jahmar Brown

Brown is one of the guys trying to vie for that starting spot after flashing as a freshman last season. He played in nine games with six tackles and should see his role increase this season, even if he doesn't win a starting job.

The former three-star prospect could play either spot but repped last season at the SAM spot and should give the Gamecocks another option there behind Greene if he doesn't ultimately win the job.

Mohamed Kaba

Kaba is an interesting one since he's still coming back from an ACL tear he suffered during his senior season and will probably be a little behind the other three outside linebackers entering fall camp at this point but could still earn some playing time.

A lot of that will depend on how his knee heals and how quickly he can get back to 100 percent, but you can't rule out him getting snaps at some point as a freshman like Brown.