The NFL Combine will be virtual in 2021, eliminating the opportunity for all recruiting candidates to personally train in front of the staff of all 32 teams in Indianapolis.
South Carolina would have been heavily represented at Lucas Oil Stadium this year. Probably, five Gamecocks would have been invited to undergo medical tests, exercises and interviews with teams and national media.
The main training before the draft for players like the wide receiver Shi Smithdefensive back Jaycee Horn and Israel Mukuamuoffensive guard Sadarius Hutcherson and linebacker Ernest Jones will now be on Gamecocks Pro Day. The school has not announced when it will host the event, but in recent years under the command of the former coach Will Muschamp coincided with the spring training schedule. New head coach Shane Beamer said the Gamecocks will start their spring camp on March 20.
These five Gamecocks are best suited to hearing their names the last weekend in April, due to their university curricula. Horn was considered a candidate for the first round last year. Over the weekend, Pro Football Focus considered him the third best corner of the draft.
Caleb Farley ?? pic.twitter.com/bacWVFfYwX
– Draft PFF (@PFF_College) January 24, 2021
Over the course of three seasons, Horn started 29 games during his South Carolina football career and played in another. This season, he had 16 tackles in total, with one losing yards. He also has a couple of interceptions, both against Auburn when he beat the defensive player of the week at the SEC, and had six past breaches to his credit.
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Smith was the number one receiver for Gamecocks in 2020. He took 57 passes for 633 yards in nine games, ranking in the top 10 of the SEC in both receptions per game (6.3) and receiving yards per game (70 , 3). He recorded 174 career receptions for 2,204 yards, fourth on the school’s all-time reception list and eighth on the school’s career receiving yard list. He will try to extend the South Carolina streak of having a wide receiver summoned to three years for three years, after Deebo Samuel (second round in 2019) and Bryan Edwards (third round in 2020).
Hutcherson made 39 career starts over his five-year career, including playing time both on guard and on the left tackle.
Jones, a junior, declared for the NFL Draft after playing nine games in 2020. He led the team with 86 tackles, becoming consecutive years at the top of that statistics column.
Mukuamu, a junior, played six of the seven games in 2020 before opting for the last three games, as did Horn. He had 10 tackles and two interceptions in 2020. Entering the 2020 season, he made 14 consecutive matches and had five career interceptions.
Hutcherson is virtually ahead of NFL scouts since the end of the college football season. He participated in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl experiment. The high school bowl was held virtually from 13 to 14 January. One-year gamecocks in the quarterback Adam Prentice and defender Collin Hill he also chose to participate in the demonstration events, Prentice at the Spiral Tropical Bowl on January 17th and Hill at the College Gridirion Showcase from January 17th to 21st. Smith will participate in the 2021 Reese’s Senior Bowl, scheduled for January 30 in Mobile, Alabama.
Stay tuned to TheBigSpur.com for more Gamecocks coverage of the NFL Draft process.