GamecockScoop – Players recap South Carolina football’s first fall scrimmage

One scrimmage down, one to go for South Carolina football. The Gamecocks held their first scrimmage of fall camp last Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium, with Shane Beamer confirming the team got about 80 plays in. The team will be back in action for another stadium scrimmage after another week of practice on Saturday, the final time they will scrimmage before the Sept. 2 season opener in Charlotte against North Carolina.

One of the highlights of the scrimmage belonged to redshirt sophomore wide receiver O’Mega Blake, who connected with Spencer Rattler for an explosive score.

“O’Mega’s been a great weapon for us,” quarterback Spencer Rattler said. “[He] can go get the ball, high IQ football player, just has to learn the details. O’Mega had a great scrimmage, I hit him for a 75-yard touchdown, and Nyck [Harbor] made some plays as well.”

Harbor — the five-star true freshman wide receiver — also played a little bit on special teams in the scrimmage per Beamer. He joins Blake as two possible contributors who could step up in the passing game while expected key playmakers Antwane Wells Jr. and Trey Knox are recovering from injuries. Neither target played in the scrimmage, but Rattler still liked what he saw from his offense.

“I liked everything,” he said. “We were explosive, we threw for a lot of yards. We got down in the red zone — we’ve got to finish at a higher rate down there — but we had a lot of explosives, protected the ball, didn’t have any turnovers, so that’s a great thing for each group.”

The biggest head-to-head position battle on Rattler’s offensive line is the ongoing duel at right tackle, where Sidney Fugar and Tyshawn Wannamaker have both been seen taking reps with the first team during the open portions of practice. Wannamaker, the returner, and Fugar, the Western Illinois transfer, are both likely to play crucial snaps throughout the season, and Fugar weighed in on what he saw from the offense during the opening scrimmage.

“I feel like what we really struggled on as an offense was just being inconsistent when it came to maybe the ones going on and the twos going on and stuff like that,” he said. “Overall we have an explosive offense, a very nitty-gritty offense. We’re coming in with a full head of steam ready to pound the rock.”

There was one turnover for the offense to speak of though, courtesy of a transfer on the other side of the ball. Defensive end Jatius Geer, a late addition during the spring portal window from Syracuse, came down with an interception on Rattler.

Geer was the final member of South Carolina’s transfer portal class, but has already been mixing in with the first and second team players in Clayton White’s defense trying to carve out a role at EDGE.

“I had a pick,” Geer said. “It bounced off a pad deflection, and I just came to it. One of the things that coach White and the coaching staff preach to us every day is running to the ball, so that was just all about running to the ball.”

Elsewhere on the defense, Saturday marked a milestone moment for linebacker Mo Kaba. Almost a full calendar year after he tore his ACL, Kaba was back in action in something resembling a game setting for the first time. It has been a difficult rehab process, with Kaba himself even admitting that teammate and fellow ACL recoverer Jordan Strachan progressed faster than him and was able to do more work over the summer.

But Kaba was finally back in action and played over a quarter of the scrimmage snaps, slowly finding himself and his footing at linebacker again.

“Coming back from an injury no matter how confident you are, making that first real hit is a mind thing,” Kaba said. “I even caught myself before the scrimmages being hesitant to play off of that foot. But once I told myself that I was good, I just started feeling better. I got 24 snaps in the last scrimmage, knocked the dust off a little bit and I’m ready for the next scrimmage to see how I feel after that.”

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