Sterling, Enagbare battling it out at defensive end

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL

It's not one of the most talked about position battles, but make no mistake there's an intense jockeying for starting position at the true defensive end spot in South Carolina's scheme.

Junior Aaron Sterling and sophomore J.J. Enagbare are currently fighting it out to earn the first snaps at the position, which lines up opposite of the BUCK in the Gamecocks' defense.

"Absolutely," Muschamp said Tuesday at the Sumter stop of his Spurs Up tour. "Great competition. Really excited about them. Joe Anderson is a young player coming in our program too. But we've got great competition up front."

Sterling, Enagbare and Anderson, a freshman who enrolled early for spring practice, are all former four-star prospects in the Rivals.com rankings.

Sterling has appeared in 21 games with four starts over the past two seasons. He's collected 38 tackles with 6.0 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks and five quarterback hurries, despite injuries slowing his progress along the way.

While Sterling appeared to take more first-team reps in practice this spring, Enagbare had a strong close to the spring session, earning Muschamp's praise, and then showing out in the spring game with multiple pressures on the quarterback.

As a freshman last season Enagbare saw action in 12 games, collecting 20 tackles with 3.0 tackles for loss and a quarterback sack, while primarily playing inside at defensive end out of necessity.

This season, Enagbare slides back out to his more naturally defensive end position, though he'll still rush from in interior on obvious passing downs.

While Anderson obviously lacks the experience of Sterling and Enagbare, the freshman impressed the coaching staff this spring with his natural pass-rush ability.

Regardless of which player takes the first snaps - Muschamp notes that senior Keir Thomas can also slide out to defensive end - the head coach is thrilled with the depth that's being developed along the entire front.

"It's [about] finally having the kind of good competition you have to have to have a good SEC defensive line," Muschamp said. "Now you're talking in terms of guys who have played quality snaps in big-time environments, to be able to handle the moments. We're not relying on a true freshman to come in and handle playing the three-technique against Georgia in the second game of the year and that's what we had to do last year.

"We asked those guys to do some very difficult things, and I kept telling our staff, and I even kept telling the young men, it's frustrating right now, but we're going to benefit from it in the long run. But unfortunately we had to go through a rough road there."