New South Carolina linebackers coach Rod Wilson has strict criteria when it comes to the linebackers he recruits: he wants the guys that have it all, if possible.
But while size, speed and power are of course important factors in playing the position, the first thing he's looking for is a far more intangible quality that he wants all of his players to have.
"Love of the game, just the love of the game," Wilson said twice for emphasis. "The effort you put into the game."
Wilson, a former NFL linebacker himself, joined the South Carolina staff in February. A Cross native and Cross High graduate, Wilson signed with Lou Holtz's Gamecocks as a quarterback out of high school before ultimately shifting to linebacker - a move he says changed his life - and getting drafted by the Bears in the seventh round of the 2005 draft.
Wilson, who previously coached linebackers at Charleston Southern before serving as the Chiefs assistant special teams coach, says the next thing he's looking for isn't a physical characteristic either.
"When it comes to a linebacker, you have to be intelligent," Wilson said in a Zoom meeting earlier this week. "It's a lot of stuff going into the system, the calls you have to make, the alignments, the adjustments and everything. So you want a guy that can retain all that information and be able to spit it right back out and play at the same time on the field. So you want a guy that's pretty smart."
And then, he says, the physical talents come into play.
"In terms of athletic ability and talent-wise, you want a guy that can run and hit," Wislon said. "You want all the perks. If you can get it. But you want a tough guy, a guy who's not going to shy away from hits, that's going to be able to come down hill, lay his hat on you, lay his pads on you. You want those kind of guys."
"But," Wilson says, "it goes back to what I first said. You want a guy that loves the game. If you can find a guy that loves the game, plays with passion, flies around the field, that's the kind of guy you want."
South Carolina appears to have two prospects like that already committed in its 2021 class in Trenilyas Tatum and Bryce Steele. The Gamecocks are also targeting several others like Thomas Davis, Ese Dubre, Jabril McNeill, Greg Penn and Jordan Poole.
