SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL

It’s not a question of if football’s changed over the last five to 10 years, it’s how much different the game is over this last half decade.

Teams are transitioning to more of a spread-you-out, RPO-based system, putting the defense at a pretty big disadvantage and leaving defensive coordinators and coaches trying to figure out how to combat it.

It’s especially tough for the defensive line, which now has even less time to get to the quarterback, and it's affecting what traits they look for on the recruiting trail.

“You’re looking for guys that can convert from run to pass with quick twitch that can get off blocks with long arms. Sometimes you’re not going to get to the quarterback but if he’s got long arms he can get up and bat a ball down,” Gamecock defensive line coach John Scott Jr. said. “That’s just as good as a sack nowadays with the RPOs. In this league, you want guys with long arms and who can extend and get off blocks.”

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Offenses now run a hefty amount of run-pass options on first down, giving the quarterback a choice of whether or not to hand the ball off to a running back or pull it and hit a receiver for a quick pass, usually a slant or a crossing route over the middle of the field.

Because of that quick decision-making, quarterbacks are either getting rid of the ball by handing it off or firing it promptly to a receiver; either way, there’s not a lot of time for a defensive lineman to be disruptive.

Scott joked he’ll never turn down a sack, but those are becoming harder and harder to come by each year since the time from when the quarterback gets the ball to when he gets rid of it is a split-second.

Because of that, he’s recruiting guys now who he thinks can be troublesome to offenses in other ways whether it’s taking on a double team, batting balls down or getting around an offensive lineman and forcing the quarterback out of the pocket.

He has a few guys like that in arguably the deepest defensive line room of the Will Muschamp era, and he’s having to now teach and develop them to change their pass rushing moves since there is the possibility on an RPO the quarterback does hand the ball off.

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“It’s certainly changed with the offense going to more RPOs. Your rushes change a little bit because you’re getting pass rush off of play action,” Scott said. “You get more play action just about every snap. You have to reach the guys how to convert and get to a pass rush move. That’s changed it a little bit. It’s no more of that traditional seven-step drop and the typical protections you get with that. Everything’s more RPO.”

Scott joined the Gamecocks’ staff this offseason, replacing Lance Thompson as the team’s defensive line coach after stints with Texas Tech, the New York Jets and most recently at Arkansas.

It was a homecoming of sorts for Scott, who grew up and played at Greer (S.C.) High School before becoming a four-year letterman at Western Carolina.

Now he’s back in his home state recruiting the Carolinas trying to find some of those defensive linemen he wants.

While Scott can’t talks about specific recruits, the Gamecocks have two defensive linemen commitments—Alex Huntley and Makius Scott—in the 2020 class and are still recruiting a few in-state players at the position, most notably Tonka Hemingway and Jordan Burch.

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“It’s going well,” Scott said of recruiting. “Luckily when I got here we were already in on some guys and to be able to jump in from that point has been good. It’s been nice getting back in the state. A lot of the guys I already knew from recruiting the state for other schools and some coaches were coaching back when I was playing in high school and remember me, so that’s been an easy transition transitioning back into the state and into North Carolina.”