Everything Clayton White said ahead of South Carolina’s matchup with Towson

South Carolina defensive coordinator Clayton White spoke to the media on Wednesday ahead of the team’s Week 2 matchup against Towson. Here’s everything he had to say. Opening statement “Glad to be here after a 1-0 week. We’re ready to get rolling on our new opponent. I feel like the best thing from last week was the focus was making sure we’re playing together, making sure we can be a cohesive unit that can respond to adversity. In our first game, a lot of new faces playing together, but I was very proud of how they responded. Just the way that they played hard the whole game, and they stayed into it, stayed in tune, I thought it was fun to watch. “Getting ready for Towson this week, a team that had won five games last year. Has a veteran head coach who’s been the head coach since 1999. An O-line guy… I met him probably 12 years ago at NC State at a clinic. Started programs. All of his team is pretty tough. They have a really good skill positions. I’m really impressed with their wide receivers — have about five or six of those guys — and some running backs that can play. Excited to watch them. I’m excited to get them here in our stadium and play them on Saturday.” What does this mean for the Gamecocks? Griffin Goodwyn and fellow subscribers are discussing it now on The Insiders Forum. Kent State’s quarterback (Dru DeShields) got the ball out pretty quick. That said, how did you like the pass rush last week? “Well, we had a couple of things. We knew the ball was going to get out fast, so we had some things that we wanted to try to knock the ball down. He had a very low release. I think it was 1.9 (seconds), he got the ball out on average throughout Saturday. That’s tough to get to the quarterback. But we had an opportunity. Probably should have had three or four more than what we had, but pass rush was fine. When I gave them an opportunity to go pass rush, I felt like — and it was a dropback situation — they did a good job, got him off his spot, and got one sack, but we should have more.” Saturday was your first shutout in quite a long time — since Shane (Beamer)‘s first game here as coach. How happy were you with that, and how do you follow up a performance like that? “Well, whenever we are out there on the field, our goal is to try to keep the points low as possible. I was here for that first shutout; I do remember that. But as the clock starts to tick, you get kind of excited. At this point, you want to preserve the shutout. But it’s very exciting. “Trying to top that, it’s a day-to-day process. The key is to stay to your process. It’s not trying to look for the results. It’s really about how you take every single day between now and Saturday.” You mentioned the 1.9 on (DeShields’) release. Is that for just pure dropback plays, or how do you guys figure that out? “Well, PFF does it all. The average was 1.9, but the dropback’s, obviously, a little bit more than that. But for 1.9 for the day, I think they only had probably… I mean, I have to go back and look. I haven’t really dwelled back on that game much. Just celebrate the win — 20-, 18-hour rule — and keep it moving.” What’s the average dropback time when you guys are going through the season? “Above 2.5 in that, the closer it gets to three, that kind of gives us excitement far as you have an opportunity to get home. But whenever it’s around 1.9 and 2.0, you shouldn’t even rush. But for the most part, the closer it is to three seconds.” Speaking of PFF, you look at J’Zavien Currence‘s page, you’ll see a lot of diversity in terms of the alignment, reminiscent a little bit of how Nick Emmanwori was used here, in the NFL. How much does J’Zavien remind you of Nick Emmanwori in terms of skill set and versatility? “Nick… When people want to say that name, you got to be very careful in regards of just ability and mindset and the makeup of him. But you can say that Currence does have some of those qualities. I feel like Currence has a maturity about him — kind of what Nick had, as well. They’re very similar in height. The speed’s a little bit different. They’re very similar, but Currence is the guy that you definitely want to… We have another package where we could have moved him around and that kind of stuff. So, you do think of some of the same things that you thought about with Nick when he was playing.” It was kind of an unfortunate circumstance: Julian Walker affected the quarterback on his first snap, but he got flagged for roughing. Is that something that you had to talk to him about after the game or throughout this week? “Not really. Coach Beamer addressed it on Sunday. So did Coach (Deion) Barnes — give a shout out to Coach Barnes for doing that. “Obviously, we can’t touch our quarterbacks here at practice, so it was really the first time that it happened for Julian. Just understand the rule here in college football: If the officials see that you saw the ball thrown, you basically can’t touch the quarterback, so it was a flag. It was a flag that needed to be thrown.” You opened the game in a 3-3-5, and you’ve run that at times throughout your time here. What do you like about it this season? What did you like or dislike about it to open the game? “We always feel like it’s a package that keeps us as a flex nickel defense. We want to be able to jump in and out of different looks as often as possible, not hurting our defense or the team. But we felt like that was a good way to kind of start the season just to make sure that our guys are calmed down. It’s a package where we can just go play and not a lot of adjustments. It’s something we do every single week and every single game. It’s something our guys love, too.” Gerald (Kilgore) was the first out there at that nickel spot. Seemed like it was a really tight battle between he and Quay’sheed Scott. What went into Gerald getting that start, and what do you want to see from those guys now? “Just want to keep those see those guys on the day-to-day, every single day, just how they operate, their process. I mean, every single day during training camp, Coach Foster — Jaylan Foster, former All-American — is pretty much in charge of — not in charge, but he is running that nickel room in regards to just day-to-day teaching and coaching. He’s doing an outstanding job of just getting in their head mentally. So, every single period, they switch who went out there first. We’ll do the same thing with games, and they go every single series. I always say Jalon Kilgore played the last 1,400 snaps at nickel, so I think two people can do that.” How would you assess Julian’s first game overall? “I was proud of him. I mean, he had a great week of practice. He had a really good month of training camp. Like I said, his growth from spring, summer fall was tremendous. Love how he played the run. He missed a sack. I know he wanted it really bad. ‘Ant’ (Anthony Addison) cleaned it up for him, so that’s the life. But I was very proud of how he played. I think he’ll continue to get better between game one and two.” Can you tell if you have a good tackling team throughout the preseason, or do you need to see it in a couple games before you know? “You can have a feel. We had a couple scrimmages where we felt like we tackled very well. I mean, you’re gonna miss tackles, but the key is, do you have the effort to make sure when it’s a miss, it’s not a 10-yard gain or 20-yard gain, that people are there? “We feel good about our effort. It was good to get out in the game and tackle some guys in space, other people, when it really counted. So, as the schedule keeps going, you’ll definitely know if you have a good tackling team or not.” You guys were able to get a lot of players in on defense. How do you feel about the depth now that you’ve seen it out there for a game? “You feel better once you see guys perform in the stadium under the lights or under the sun. You want to just see more, but you feel good about the depth. You’re able to coach; you’re able to get stuff off the tape. We didn’t play that many snaps. I think we played 49 snaps on defense, so you didn’t really get a chance to… I think the most a linebacker played was 22, so you have an opportunity just to coach some stuff that came up two weeks ago in camp or a week ago in camp. But it’s good to get some of that stuff on tape and get it figured out.” Coach Beamer had a really encouraging update on Dylan Stewart yesterday, talking about him practicing in pads and stuff. What your excitement level with where he’s at and how close he is to getting back out there? “I’m very excited that he’s able to. It was nice to see him just back out there. Got his braces. You know, he’s still a young kid, but it’s fun for everyone to watch him. He’s not practicing with us — he’s more doing on the side and just getting his getting his conditioning up — but it’s cool to see him back out there and working, working his moves. “He’s ready to go. I think he’s ready to go closer than what we think. So, very excited, but it’s awesome.” Do you have a personal game plan for him when he is able to play? Do you cut him loose and just use him like you would if he were not coming off an injury, or do you preserve him for third down plays, pass rushing plays? “That’s going to depend on the amount of plays that he’s approved or cleared to play. But our game plan will not change. He has an uncanny ability just to remember every single thing, and it’s the most impressive thing I’ve ever been around, regards of someone who can just remember basically his whole rhyme, his whole lyrics without even writing them down, type stuff. So, that’s kind of the level he’s on in regards of recall and retention. But don’t have to change anything. Just know when he’s out there, know when he’s not.” What do you think? Join the discussion on The Insiders Forum.