South Carolina Head Coach Breaks Down NC State

South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp broke down NC State at his weekly press conference, and he had a lot to say about their experience, Senior H-Back Jaylen Samuels, and the whole entire Defensive Line.

Opening Statement

“I know our guys are excited about playing a very good, veteran NC State football team. (They have) 18 returning starters, eight senior starters on defense, six of them in the front seven. They have a very efficient, experienced quarterback in Ryan Finley, a guy that does an outstanding job with their offense. They have 89 starts back on the offensive line, and two dynamic playmakers in Jaylen Samuels and Nyheim Hines, a guy who is also a returner. They move both of those guys around a bunch.

“But the strength of their football team is in their front four. Those guys are extremely talented – (Bradley) Chubb and (Kentavius) Street and (B.J.) Hill and (Justin) Jones. They’re really good football players, so we need to play well.

On NC State’s tempo and pre-snap motion, and how the Gamecocks can handle it…

“I think because of tempo, a lot of teams are not motioning and shifting as much anymore. They’ll create tempo without motion and shifting, but certainly they do give you some pre-snap movement. (That is) something we’ve prepared for a lot; our offense does a lot of movement as well. I think there are some comparable qualities between some of the pre-snap things we’ve seen throughout camp.”

On how to prepare for N.C. State’s Jaylen Samuels…

“Well, he’s a really good football player. They find very creative ways to hand him the ball, throw him the ball, toss him the ball. He’s a very effective playmaker. I have a lot of respect for him. I don’t know him personally. When you have this much time to prepare, you watch a lot of tape. I certainly really enjoy watching him play. You got to have awareness of where he is and the guys have to have understanding of when he lines up in certain areas, there’s a reason why he is there and just have a good concept for understanding those things.”

On what makes NC State’s defensive line a tough challenge…

“They’re very disruptive. They do a very good job of rushing four guys. They can get to the quarterback with four guys rushing. They’re going to do a good job attacking your protections to get some one-on-one matchups you’ve got to be careful with. They do a good job stemming what I call the ‘bear front” a lot, creating one-on-one matchups across the board with a linebacker rushing. With the one-on-one matchups, you’ve got to be sure you give enough variety in protection to keep your quarterback upright. They’re also very disruptive in the run game. They’ve recruited extremely well there. They’ve evaluated very well, and they’ve developed their players very well up front.”