Robinson talks defense; Montac practices for first time

The awful memory is most likely still seared into the minds of Gamecocks fans.

Last September, Georgia quarterback Greyson Lambert and his receivers ran slant after slant, completing pass after pass against a South Carolina defense playing soft coverage.

Most disconcerting, the Gamecocks made few adjustments as then defensive coordinator Jon Hoke visibly demonstrated meager faith in his cornerbacks lining up close to the line of scrimmage.

By the end of the night, Lambert had completed 24-of-25 passes for 330 yards and three touchdowns, and Georgia had rung up 576 total yards in a lopsided victory.

New Gamecocks defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson, who has worked alongside Will Muschamp for the past five seasons, doesn’t intend for something as nightmarish as that night in Athens, Ga., happening to the USC defense in 2016.

Muschamp has proclaimed his preference for his cornerback to play ‘bump and run’ coverage, yet at the same time has continually insisted USC will only do schematically what the players are capable of doing on the football field.

Paraphrasing Muschamp, if the defensive backs prove they are incapable of covering a bucket of water, he won’t allow them to play bump-and-run, commonly referred to as press coverage.

Through four preseason camp practices, though, Robinson has liked what he has seen from his cornerbacks.

“We’re a bump football team,” Robinson said Friday following USC’s morning practice at Gamecock Park. “That has always been our style of play. Obviously, we have to get better at it. That’s something we’re going to improve upon a lot. We’re going to bump. We’re going to be somewhere 60 to 70 percent bump man-to-man, doing different things like that with the ability to play zone and different things to change up the looks. Our corners are coming around pretty nicely, guys like Rashad Fenton, Chris Lammons and JaMarcus King.”

Four months after Muschamp first pronounced the secondary as being ‘light years away,’ Lammons told the media earlier this week he expects the Gamecocks secondary will prove the skeptics wrong after difficult 2014 and 2015 campaigns.

“We’re going to be a whole lot better than what other people expect when the season gets here,” Lammons said.

“We’re still light years away, but we have a long time to get to where we need to,” Robinson added. “I’m feeling really good about the progress the guys are making. It’s a step-by-step, day-by-deal deal. They are getting better every day. If they can do that 26 more times, we’ll be ready to roll.”

Besides allowing the Gamecocks secondary to play more aggressively than last season, Robinson also realizes USC has struggled to stop the run the past two seasons. A year ago, the Gamecocks finished last in the SEC in rushing defense (217.4), allowing greater than 5.0 yards per rushing attempt for the second straight year.

“The SEC is a line of scrimmage league regardless of how they line up or whether they are fast tempo,” Robinson said. “At the end of the day, you have to run the ball and you have to stop the run. We are going to do those things for our guys to make sure we are getting prepared for that. We are going to do the 2-on-1 blocks, we are going to do the 1-on-1 blocks, we are going to do the 9-on-7 run.

“We are going to be a physical outfit, offensively and defensively. That is what we are going to hang our hat on. Coach Muschamp talks all the time about being a blue-collar football team. That’s what that means. Our guys are going to be tough and they will understand that we play one style of football and that is toughness.”

Improving a woeful pass rush has been another key area of emphasis for Robinson so far. The Gamecocks collected 20 sacks in 2015, a slight improvement from the previous season but still ranked in the bottom half of the SEC.

“Even if you have a great secondary, you still need a pass rush because you can’t cover these SEC receivers forever,” Robinson said. “Coach Thompson and Coach Peterson are doing a great job developing a pass rush. We’ll come up with some creative ways to get to the quarterback to give our guys in the back end some relief. Any good pass defense has got a pass rush. We’ll do enough things with the front as far as pressure to generate the rush we need.”

Forcing turnovers has likewise been emphasized in the early going of preseason camp. USC generated 20 turnovers in 2015 and finished plus-5 in turnover margin, a seldom discussed bright spot in an otherwise dismal season.

“We talk about getting the rock every single day,” Robinson said. “That is going to be our style of play. Our guys are doing a great job of going out and working on it every day.”

NOTES:

-- JUCO defensive back Steven Montac has finally joined the Gamecocks, practicing for the first time on Friday. Montac, a 5-11, 190-pounder, played at Coffeyville (Kansas) Community College in 2015, where he was a teammate of Gamecock newcomer JaMarcus King. Robinson described his first day as “a pleasant surprise.”

-- Robinson said the Gamecock defense is continuing to install different parts of the defensive package, requiring in homework for the players. “You have to go and do your job, prepare off the field and study at night and do all the different things you have to do to be a good football player,” Robinson said. “If you know what to do, you have a chance to play fast. If you don’t know what to do, you don’t have a chance to play fast. Our guys are doing that (playing fast), but we are throwing a lot on them every single day. We are not going to back off these guys. We are going to stay on them.”

-- Robinson said Skai Moore, sidelined for the season, attends position meetings while continuing to rehab from neck surgery.

-- Chaz Elder said he and D.J. Smith are sharing snaps at safety.

-- Robinson said the Gamecocks have stayed largely injury-free through the first four practices.

-- Robinson said DE Dante Sawyer, who sat out the spring while rehabbing from offseason shoulder surgery, will play both inside and outside. He will primarily line up in five or six technique on the edge. “He will give us a lot of variety in what we do,” Robinson said. “But he has been out of ball for a little bit. He is just getting his feet wet and hitting the ground running.”

-- Robinson said he wants to get about 10 defensive linemen ready for games.