South Carolina Football: 3 reasons the Gamecocks will struggle in 2020

1. Youthful team/injuries

South Carolina has 13 players on the team who are either freshmen or redshirt freshmen and 21 who are sophomores or redshirt sophomores, which is approximately 40 percent of the team. That doesn’t put a lot of collegiate level experience on the field. There are the same amount of seniors on the Gamecocks roster as there are freshmen.

The Gamecocks lost a good chunk of the production from last year when 21 seniors departed. Javon Kinlaw, Bryan Edwards, D.J. Wonnum and T.J, Brunson went to the next level after being selected in the 2020 NFL Draft.

In addition to transfers that occurred during the 2019 season, the team also lost Alex Wuznick, Jordan Curry and Summie Carlay as they transferred out.

South Carolina has also been hit with several injuries even though the season hasn’t started yet, most notably the loss of incoming freshman, MarShawn Lloyd, who will miss his first year due to a torn ACL.

Jaheim Bell is out with a meniscus injury and isn’t expected to return before November. Ernest Jones, Spencer Eason-Riddle and Rosendo Louis were unable to practice when preseason practice began but they were expected to be cleared before the kickoff of the season or early October.

The youth of the team will be a double-edged sword for the Gamecocks because in one aspect the new coaches will not have to work so hard to teach the players to do things their way, instead of what they have been accustomed to. On the other hand, they will have that problem with the players who have been on the team for a couple of years and everyone is going to have to acclimate with each other, both the coaches and players.