Roper: McIlwain progressed throughout spring
South Carolina freshman quarterback Brandon McIlwain has been the talk of Gamecock Nation following his performance in Saturday's Garnet and Black spring game.
Gamecocks co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kurt Roper joined 107.5 The Game's Heath Cline to discuss the progress of his early enrollee quarterback earlier this week.
South Carolina's play-caller was most impressed with McIlwain's ability to improve as the 15 practice sessions played out.
"It got steadily better each day," Roper said of McIlwain's spring. "He's a guy that went to work, really tried to focus on the little things that we were teaching. I think what you saw on Saturday was encouraging. He found completions. He made plays with his arm, which is something that I think you have to do, really, at this level of football. You've got to be able to throw the football with consistency and I thought they showed on Saturday and I think it improved."
The former four-star prospect, who enrolled this January after graduating early from Council Rock North in Newtown, Penn.
McIlwain completed 19 of 26 passes for 169 yards and two touchdowns. He added another touchdown on the ground.
More importantly, he didn't turn the football over.
Roper emphasizes for his quarterbacks to minimize the damage and make smart decisions, even when a play breaks down or a bad call is on, and that's something McIlwain was able to do.
"His decision making improved, all through the spring," Roper said. "He's always had a strong arm, but it just started going into better spots as the spring went on. We stopped throwing it to the defense. I tell them all the time, there are a lot of options in the passing game, the other team is not one of them. I thought we got better at that."
Much of Saturday's passing game featured short, quick passes which McIlwain was accurate and showed touch on. It seems like a small thing, but accuracy in the short game -- and allowing a receiver to catch the ball in stride on the perimeter -- can be the difference in making a first down and coming up short of the sticks.
Roper says that as the spring has progressed, McIlwain found a comfortable arm slot, comfortable grip on the ball and showed improved touch which has helped in the short passing game.
"All of those things are simply run game plays that get labeled a pass, but it's our way of running a toss sweep is really what it gets down to and putting the ball in space and trying to create one-on-one tackles instead of always running in the box where safeties are coming up and backing linebackers," Roper explained. "It's just an extension of our run game and if you aren't really accurate on that, sometimes a 5-yard gain becomes a 2-yard gain."
This offseason, Roper says McIlwain must continue to work on his ability to manage dropback protections and make good decisions in the dropback passing game during the player-run practices.
McIlwain will continue battle with Perry Orth, Connor Mitch and Lorenzo Nunez -- who Roper says will continue to compete at quarterback -- into the fall. But the staff hopes to name a quarterback then and stick with him, rather than allow the quarterback battle to extend into the season.
"Once you make that [decision], you hope that's the way it goes for the season," Roper said. "There's always changes, you can't guarantee it's always going to stay that way. But what we'd like to get into fall practice, put guys into competitive situations and make a decision and that guy go give us a chance to win every game that we play in."
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