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Clowney playing through pain

FeatheredCock

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Though South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore is finished for this season, and probably next, with a serious right knee injury, the Gamecocks still have one of college football’s best players in defensive end Jadeveon Clowney. Barring injury, they will have him for the rest of this season, and then next, and then he will be off to the NFL, perhaps as the No. 1 overall pick.

But before then, he probably will make more plays like the win-clinching strip-sack of Tennessee’s Tyler Bray on Saturday. That is one of those iconic moments for which Clowney will be remembered forever in Columbia. Just 22 games into his college career, it is clear that he will go down as one of the best players in school history, if he keeps playing like this.

And defensive line coach Brad Lawing has no reason to believe that Clowney won’t. He wanted Clowney to push himself harder in practice this season than he did last season. And Clowney has done that. Lawing wanted Clowney to brush up on the Gamecocks’ scheme, so teammates didn’t have to tell him what to do before most snaps. Clowney sharpened his mental approach as well.

Moreover, Clowney made that strip-sack of Bray while playing his third straight game in pain caused by a deeply bruised right foot that again had him in a walking boot after Tuesday’s practice – the first of three for the Gamecocks in their off week, as they prepare for the Nov. 10 home game against Arkansas. With a little rest, Lawing expects him to be ready for that game.

“It’s a pain thing that he’s got to work through,” Lawing said. “He played the first series the other day and he came over and he didn’t think he could go full speed. (Former USC defensive end) Jordin Lindsey was there on the sideline. I’ve got a lot of respect for (Lindsey’s) toughness.

“I said (to Clowney), ‘You see that guy right there?’ He didn’t know who (Lindsey) was. I said, ‘JD, that guy right there, he played with a broken wrist for several weeks. If he can play with a broken wrist, you’ve got to work through this foot thing.’

“And he did. I’m proud of him. He fought through it and fought through it and heck, he made a play that kind of won the ball game. That was an NFL play, in my opinion. That’s one of those that you turn on the TV and you see somebody like DeMarcus Ware making that.”

Lawing said this defensive line is probably the fastest he’s ever had, and Clowney is a big reason for that. But for a defensive end like Clowney, speed doesn’t mean just using your feet to get around an offensive tackle. It also means using your hands to get separation – something Clowney said he has significantly improved since last season.

Lawing thinks Clowney can continue to improve with “just keeping learning how to use his hands. That’s something that you probably never really just get great at, except for time, because he’ll stick his shoulder in there every now and then (to get separation). We were watching tape (Tuesday) and I said, ‘There’s your shoulder in there again. They were holding you. And they’re not going to call holding.’

“I had an SEC official tell him last year, as a favor to me, that, ‘When you put your shoulder in there, we’re not going to call holding.’ So don’t put it in there. If you get separation, use your hands. There’s a chance holding may get called (if you used your hands). Plus, you’re more efficient as a pass rusher and as a football player overall when you use your hands.”

As he planned to do this season, Lawing has moved Clowney inside to defensive tackle at times in order to get him better pass rush lanes to the quarterback.

“If people start loading up on the outside and they’re going to chip you (with a running back) and turn an extra guard out on you, then you’ve got to do something to adjust,” Lawing said. “That’s the adjustment we make.”

Before the season, Lawing and defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward used the NFL as a carrot to motivate Clowney. “You can be a first-round pick you can be the first pick,” they told him.

Clowney clearly got the message, and while Lawing is far from content with Clowney’s performance, this is the type of production he expected from the former No. 1 overall recruit.

“We work under the premise that there is no finish line,” Lawing said. “In athletics, when you give somebody a finish line, that’s not a good thing, because they get to a point where they get satisfied. So with him, there’s no finish line. He’s gotten better and now he’s got to get better on game days because he’s not practicing a lot (due to the foot). Either you’ve got to practice or you’ve got to play to get better, so he’s missing some developmental time right now because of lack of practice time. He’s getting there. I’m glad he came to South Carolina.”

Some other notes from Lawing in this week of healing for his defensive line ...

** Lawing indicated there is a chance Clowney might need to have surgery on his injured right foot after the season. But that isn’t a guarantee.

“That’s something they can fix in the offseason,” he said of the foot.

Does that mean surgery?

“I guess,” Lawing said. “I’m not a doctor. I know it’s something they talked about fixing. I don’t know what all they do.”

** Lawing expects not only Clowney, but also starting tackles Byron Jerideau (sprained ankle) and Kelcy Quarles (sprained shoulder), and top reserve tackle J.T. Surratt (sprained ankle), to be OK for the Arkansas game. Quarles has missed the past two games.

“Kelcy, hopefully he’ll be ready (to practice) in the next couple days,” Lawing said. “He’s got an AC sprain. I’m not going to push him because I know how those AC sprains are. They’re very, very painful. And it’s a sprain, but I don’t know if you’ve ever hurt your shoulder before, but when you hurt your shoulder, sometimes it hurts to cough and it hurts to roll over in bed a little bit wrong. We’ve got to get him healthy.

“I think they’re all going to be healthy by (Arkansas), from what I’ve been told. I tell all of them, ‘Do what you can do (in practice).’ And I trust them. If I didn’t trust them, it would be a different factor. So I believe that if they can’t go, they’re hurt and they can’t push through it right now. I want to get them healthy for the stretch run. The most important day is Saturday (i.e. game day), and I understand that. I’ve got to get them to Saturday.”

** Lawing knows his front four must do a better job of “affecting” (not necessarily sacking, but pressuring) Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson, who is a pocket passer like Bray. On Saturday, Bray had time to throw for much of the day.

“When they’re throwing the ball on us, as a defensive front, we accept responsibility, too,” Lawing said. “We’ve got to do a better job with that. We’ve got to affect the quarterback better and we know that.”

** The off week comes at a good time for Lawing’s front four.

“I wish it had come several weeks ago, but unfortunately our bye comes at the tail end of our season,” Lawing said. “But at least we’ve got one. I’ve been through seasons where you played 11 or 12 straight weeks without a bye. That is tough. In a perfect world, you’d probably like to have about four or five games then have a bye, then play about four or five more and have a bye.”

** The injuries to Quarles, Surratt and Jerideau have meant more playing time for Phillip Dukes and Gerald Dixon Jr., Lawing’s redshirt freshman tackles. Dukes has been playing with a cast on his hand to protect a fractured thumb. Lawing said that cast will probably come off this week.

“J.T. and Junior have made tremendous strides and Phillip has made a lot of strides, too,” Lawing said. “That cast kind of limits what he can do. As a defensive lineman, you’ve got to play with your hands and with that cast on, it’s tough. I’m very pleased with all those guys and the direction they’re headed.”

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