South Carolina football: Which Gamecocks have the most to prove in the third week of fall camp?

It’s hard to believe, but the Gamecocks already in the third week of preseason practice. Monday marks two and a half weeks until Carolina heads up to Vanderbilt to open up against the Commodores. Today, Tuesday and Wednesday is open to the public, so here’s a few players/position groups that have the most to prove as time ticks down:

The quarterbacks. I’m not concerned that none of them have distanced themselves from the other since there’s still plenty of practices to go until the kickoff in Nashville on September 1. However, I’d say that this week is do or die time for whoever wants the starting job. Muschamp has said that if it comes down to playing two quarterbacks, he’d do it (and he has an offensive coordinator in Kurt Roper that has experience in a two QB set), but I think that if you were to put a gun to his head, he’d prefer not to do so. I’d go as far to say that we might know something by end of week (simply a guess, not a factual declaration). By the way, I like how he said “don’t ask” who threw those two picks on Saturday - imagine all of the media and fan #speculation that would invite.

David Williams. Williams has responded well to Muschamp’s challenges, working his way back to near the top of the depth chart. My feeling is that A.J. Turner still has the edge in the starting department simply due to what he brings to the table, but Williams should be in line to get plenty of action. Will that change over the next couple of weeks? Time will tell. However, it looks as if Williams has received a big-time wakeup call.

Darius Whitfield. Whitfield, recruited as a DB, has moved to the offensive line. It’s not as if he hasn’t been there before: he was actually a top 10 center in college. Now it’s a matter of adjusting to the college game and quickly pick up on Shawn Elliott’s system. I’d expect Whitfield to see the majority of his time as the third man/co-second string with Cory Helms (especially if Alan Knott can’t go for any reason), possibly sliding over to right guard behind Donell Stanley if Helms needs to play center.

The secondary. Muschamp declared the secondary “OK” in Saturday’s scrimmage. While that’s better than bad (see last year), they still apparently have a long way to. Obviously, I wasn’t privy to what exactly was said during Muschamp’s teleconference, but I could sense his lack of satisfaction with what he’s seen thus far. I imagine a good bit of the scrimmage on Saturday featured a good bit of ear bending and NSFW elements directed toward the backfield.