What we know about Coastal Carolina football after spring practices: It’s competitive
The Coastal Carolina sports information staff didn’t even bother to produce a two-deep depth chart by position for the football team’s spring practices this year.
Though it’s common practice to create one, the competition for starting and backup positions for the 2022 season is so wide open that it wouldn’t have served much of a purpose.
The Chanticleers lost 15 starters on offense and defense to graduation and the expending of eligibility.
Most of them were multi-year starters and many were in the program for six years. Even the kicker, punter and long-snapper positions are up for grabs.
So the competition was intense in CCU’s month of spring practices, which culminated with Thursday night’s intrasquad spring game at Brooks Stadium.
“With everybody graduating last year, losing all these guys, I’m really excited to see everybody step up and compete,” junior receiver Tyson Mobley said. “It’s really exciting to just go out there and compete and see all the new talent we have and all the working parts moving together.”
The Chants were without redshirt sophomore quarterback Grayson McCall, freshman defensive end Josaiah Stewart, who set the school record for sacks in a season with 12.5, and redshirt senior tight end TJ Ivy Jr. for the practices, who all missed due to offseason surgeries.
“There has been a lot more focus from all positions on, ‘Hey making sure that I come out and perform every day, I can’t go through the motions or have a bad day or somebody’s maybe going to take that spot.’ So it has been spirited,” CCU head coach Jamey Chadwell said.
“I think having so many opportunities available has helped the growth of our team and players, and that will continue through the rest of this offseason.”
Rebuilding the offense
The Chants return McCall, who set an NCAA record for passing efficiency, and talented running backs Reese White and Braydon Bennett.
On the offensive line, junior Willie Lampkin returns and moves from guard to center and Carolina Forest High alumnus and tackle Antwine Loper returns for his super senior season. The Chants must replace graduated and departed multi-year starters Sam Thompson, Trey Carter and Steven Bedosky.
Chadwell said redshirt sophomore Willie Moise (6-3, 295) has been impressive this spring and is positioned to start.
At receiver, Jaivon Heiligh has exited with several school receiving records and fellow 2021 starter Kameron Brown is also gone.
Chadwell said Georgia State redshirt senior wide receiver transfer Sam Pinckney (6-4, 210) has picked up CCU’s offense quickly. “He’s going to get on the field quickly for us, which we need because we lost some guys,” he said.
Otherwise, the Chants will need some relatively inexperienced receivers to step up, including Mobley, redshirt junior Deon Fountain and redshirt junior Aaron Bedgood, who was used as a hybrid running back and receiver this spring.
“I’ve just been working on being more of a leader, taking those lessons that Jaivon and Kam taught me and passing them down to the younger guys,” Mobley said.
“The main concern still coming out is do we have enough firepower at receiver that you can count on? That’s the biggest question mark,” Chadwell said. “I think we’ve got a lot of talent there, but as you saw tonight, we can make a place but we might miss a pass or we might fumble, some things we can’t do in this league, so those are things we’ve got to continue to make strides at.”
At tight end, Isaiah Likely is headed to the NFL and seniors Xavier Gravette, Patrick McSweeney and Ivy are among those competing for the starting job and playing time.
At quarterback, Bryce Carpenter returns for his super senior season to back up McCall, and the coaches will be relying on redshirt junior Jarrett Guest (6-3, 190) of Marietta, Ga., to step in if necessary.
“Jarrett’s got a lot of talent and a lot of ability, just the consistency piece with him is the thing he needs to continue to do,” Chadwell said. “. . . From a leadership, from a consistency standpoint of performing every day, he’s still got to take another step, and he knows that.
“He could be one snap away from this team being his, and he’s got to have that mindset every day.”
Rebuilding the defense
The Chants lost a lot of talent on the defensive side of the ball, including potential NFL Draft selection Jeffery Gunter at outside linebacker, All-American defensive tackle C.J. Brewer and inside linebackers Silas Kelly and Teddy Gallagher.
Stewart returns after breaking the school record for sacks in a season with 12.5. He’s joined on the defensive line by Jerrod Clark and Travis Geiger Jr., who split time at nose tackle last season.
“I’m as hungry as I’ve ever been. I finally feel like myself as an athlete again,” said redshirt junior J.T. Killen, who is expected to earn a starting inside linebacker position in his fourth season at CCU. “It’s been tough. I love those guys, those guys are great players, but now I’m ready to go. I think we all are, too.
“. . . I’ve been wanting this for a while. I kept my head down, kept working, I just knew it was coming. I love it here, I wanted to stick around. I’m on a good team, I don’t know why I’d want to go anywhere else. I’ve still got two or three years to play here.”
Others expected to contribute at linebacker include redshirt sophomores Shane Bruce and Mason Shelton, and redshirt senior Jamar Darboe.
In the defensive backfield, First Team All-Sun Belt Conference cornerback D’Jordan Strong returns for his super senior season and corner Lance Boykin has some experience, but there is little experience at safety.
CCU lost punter Charles Ouverson and long-snapper C.J. Schrimpf to eligibility and kicker Massimo Biscardi to graduation and a transfer to Mississippi State.
Working the transfer portal
Chadwell has been impressed in spring practices by a couple transfers, particularly redshirt senior Ja’Quon Griffin, a defensive tackle transfer from Georgia Tech.
“He has been very impressive. He has done a lot of really, really good things,” Chadwell said.
CCU will be relying on a number of transfers to play immediately.
Pinckney, Griffin, redshirt junior linebacker/safety Jahmar Brown from South Carolina, and super senior outside linebacker Adrian Hope from Furman will be among them. Five defensive linemen are transfers from either FBS schools or junior colleges.
“The way we want to attack it is we’re trying to go after as many high school kids as we can, but if there are specific needs, you know we lost a couple really good D-linemen so there’s a specific need,” Chadwell said. “We needed some older kids to come in and try make an impact. So anywhere we think there is a specific need that we’re missing to help us have a chance to be a really good team, we’re going to try to attack the portal with that.”
Chadwell said the Chants have a couple more scholarships to give to the 2022 class based on players transferring from the program, and he expects to use them.
“It’s like a free agency,” Chadwell said. “You go through spring and see we’re good here and not good here, is there an opportunity to bring someone in.”
Spring takeaways
Chadwell believes his team has to become more efficient and mistake-free this fall.
“We’ve made good progress, but I would say not as clean as I’d hoped we’d be to this point,” he said. “What I mean by that is we’re still doing some things in Practice 14 that we don’t need to be doing. Part of that is some youth, part of that is the inexperience. We’ve got some guys that are injured that aren’t practicing and I think that’s part of it as well, having some leaders that might not be out there as much.”
Spring practices allowed the coaching staff to determine what each inexperienced player needs to work on heading into the season.
“What it does is [identify] who can you count on that knows what they’re doing, and who has the talent but they don’t know what they’re doing yet,” Chadwell said. “. . . So we’ve been able to identify through that who’s ready in both those areas and who’s not and what they’re lacking. Now we have the plan to get you better here, whether that’s physically or whether that’s mentally, to take the next step to help us.”
The Chants lost a coach early in spring practices, as wide receivers coach Tony Washington accepted the same position at West Virginia.
Tight ends coach Malcolm Dixon is now coaching wide receivers and Chadwell plans to fill Washington’s open spot in the coming weeks or months.
Chadwell said the team got through the month of practices and spring game without any serious injuries.
“I’m overall pleased with our development, but we’ve got some guys who still need to step up if we’re going to have a chance to make some noise in this league,” Chadwell said, “because, as you saw, our schedule is really tough this year, and we’re going to have to play really well each week to try to have a chance.”
While it’s referred to as spring practices, it’s actually winter practices for CCU since Chadwell believes there are benefits to going earlier than most other programs, though there are more teams practicing earlier this year. Weather can be a concern, but it won’t be once CCU’s new $15 million indoor practice facility is built.
CCU’s 2022 Football Schedule
9/3 Army
9/10 Gardner-Webb
9/17 Buffalo
9/22 at Georgia State*
10/1 Georgia Southern*
10/8 at Louisiana-Monroe*
10/15 Old Dominion*
10/29 at Marshall*
11/3 App State*
11/12 Southern Miss*
11/19 at Virginia
11/26 at James Madison*
* Denotes Sun Belt Conference game
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 10:16 AM.
