South Carolina football will have a young QB room in ’21.
Last year, the Columbia quarterback room was a perceived strength of the team, with a former starter at Ryan Hilinski, a graduate transfer at Collin Hill and a talented newcomer Luke Doty struggling to lead the team.
Fast forward to the off-season of 2020 and two of these three options are on the transfer portal.
Ryan Hilinski was the first to make the announcement, deciding to look for a new landing site late last month. Hill did the same last weekend.
Both decisions can be linked to former South Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, who fled to Auburn shortly after signing a contract to remain with the Gamecocks. Hill followed Bobo from Colorado State to Columbia in 2020 and was named the full-back in the team’s first eight games.
Gamecocks were only 2-6 in those eight appearances, and Hill was replaced by Luke Doty. He will not be back in 2021.
There is still a bit of skepticism about Hilinski’s situation, however, as Bobo’s departure may have the opposite effect on the former former caller.
There were rumors of a reported riff between Hilinski and his former player, who seemed very hesitant to remove Collin Hill from the squad, despite his constant struggles. Hilinski, who had shown some flashes in the 2019 season, was defeated by Hill in the offseason quarterback competition. His knowledge of the manual, not athletic ability, was the reason Hill reported winning the job.
The Gamecocks failed to show any real progression in the passing game with Hill in the center, but Bobo kept him on the field, instead of giving his second option a chance. When Hill was finally kicked in game eight, Bobo turned to freshman Luke Doty, and Hilinski was the stranger again.
Hilinski announced his transfer plan after Shane Beamer appointed Bobo the Gamecocks as the offensive coordinator for next season, but things could change with his former coach now on the move.
When asked at his press conference earlier this week, Beamer said he had been in contact with Hilinski, and that the two had a “great conversation” about how Hilinski could fit into the Gamecocks’ future.
Hilinski told Beamer about his transfer intentions while the head coach was finishing preparations for the Big XII championship with Oklahoma. Since returning to Columbia, Beamer has been in regular contact, although the details of these talks are not known.
If Hilinski returns to the Gamecocks squad, it will provide depth and experience in a quarterback room that, as of now, consists only of Doty and the new freshman Colten Gauthier. The position would have more competition, which is exactly what Beamer wants, and Hilinski would certainly have a clean slate and a new technical commission restart.
“We will be creative and, certainly, going forward, we will do everything we can to put these numbers where they need to be in each position. And the quarterback is no different than any other position. It has to be the right dynamic if we add it to that room. And I talked to the guys at the first team meeting and talked about it (Sunday) at night. We always want to be about competition and compete in everything we do, and that is no different when it comes to team positions. “
If Hilinski maintains his transfer decision, the coaching staff may need to be creative, as Beamer mentioned in the statement above.
That creativity can mean moving the quarterback and getting Dakereon Joyner back into the game room. Joyner was a four-star signal caller coming out of high school, but is finishing his first full season on the wide receiver, where he got seven passes and scored a few touchdowns.
In addition to moving Joyner, Gamecocks would probably have to grab a drawer from the transfer portal, to provide depth if anything else. As of now, the job appears to be Doty’s, but depending on Hilinski’s final decision, we may not be able to hand him the keys yet.