Clayton White, Defensive Staff Wary Of High Snap Counts
At this point in the season, one of the most important objectives for major college football coaching staffs is to ensure you're not overworking your players ahead of their games on Saturday. This goal is vital for someone like South Carolina's defensive coordinator Clayton White, who's seen his unit struggle at multiple junctures this season at being able to get off the field, and sometimes is compounded by the offense playing the kind of complementary football you don't want to see.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Gamecocks have five defenders who have recorded over 500 total snaps this season, one of only two teams in the SEC who can claim that. Four of those defenders, Marcellas Dial, Debo Williams, DQ Smith, and Jalon Kilgore, rank in the Top 9 in terms of the highest snap counts from an individual standpoint. It's something that has the attention of White, his assistants, and other important departments of the program, as he explained at his weekly Wednesday press conference.
"We are definitely on high alert on the snap count that our guys [have accumulated]. We have our strength staff, our nutrition staff, [and] also our athletic training staff on high alert, and also the position coaches and the coordinator on how we script plays and make sure that we're monitoring it, and we're watching it very closely," Clayton said. "As a unit, as a program, we're definitely well aware, and we have GPS systems, and [we're] just watching those guys to make sure that we're not tapping them out before Saturday, but those guys also have to meet us halfway with hydration, nutrition, sleep, and all that good old stuff and the guys do a pretty good job with that."
This is where a lack of depth at certain positions has hurt South Carolina, as positions like outside corner, linebacker, and nickel corner either lack guys who can make a consistent impact at the SEC level or contain young players who are growing and developing in the program. Recruiting and a potential reevaluation of the defensive scheme could go a long way toward ensuring this doesn't become a dreaded cycle for South Carolina's defense moving forward.
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