Every freshman has a welcome to college football moment; it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
For Cam Smith, he remembers his vividly.
“Camp,” he said, without skipping a beat.
Smith wasn’t an early enrollee with the 2019 class, coming in over the summer after spring practice, which means his first taste of college football was that month of fall camp leading up to the season.
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In that, he was tasked with having to try and cover the likes of Bryan Edwards and Shi Smith in practice.
That would be tough for a seasoned cornerback, let alone a freshman still getting his feet wet weeks after arriving on campus.
In that month, it caused Smith to deviate from who he thought he was and got away from what got him to South Carolina in the first place.
“Going through the whole camp, I felt like I wasn’t myself,” he said. “I felt like I was trying to be somebody I wasn’t. Throughout the season, I came back to find myself.”
Since camp ended and his freshman season began, Smith’s spent a lot of time working on his mental health and getting his mind right.
“Just going back to my roots. I was talking to my family a lot and telling my mom how I felt,” Smith said. “I would go home all the time to talk to her, talk to my grandparents to try to get my mind right.”
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He considers his mom a “big influence” in his life, and he’s hoping his work away from the field his freshman season comes together in year two.
Smith’s first-year numbers weren’t eye-popping—three games played, seven tackles and a redshirt—but the talent is undeniable.
He came to campus as a top 200 prospect and a four-star corner right from Will Muschamp’s backyard and, while he didn’t see much of the field as a freshman, he still has plenty of talent to chisel out a role this year.
“Well Cam was a freshman and he needed to get a lot stronger. Athletically he runs extremely well with great change of direction. He has really good instincts on the back end but the wear and tear on the season wore down on him,” Muschamp said. “He’s done a nice job in the offseason program of getting stronger. That’s something we really challenged him with. As far as what we want at the position he’s what you want. Now he has to get turns, reps and play. That’s what he’s doing right now.”
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His focus has been trying to really get comfortable in the system to try and see more of the field as a redshirt freshman.
“Really I worked on my mental game: learning the plays, getting in the playbook, getting in the film room and making sure what I need to do in what situations to make the play in those situations,” he said. “Then it was getting in the weight room, getting stronger and getting bigger to make sure I’m a real, SEC corner.”
Smith had five practices in this spring before things were shelved due to the Coronavirus, and impressed the coaches with what he was doing.
“Cam, he’s got a couple things he’s working on with his hands but he’s doing a good job,” defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson said. “He’s a very quick and fast guy. He gained some weight in the offseason. We’re excited about that.”
