Jumbo Package: Injury report for South Carolina, Mike Shula returns

Happy Thursday everyone. The injury report was released before South Carolina and is as follows:

Yhonzae Pierre, LB – Out

Kendrick Law, WR – Questionable

Kobe Prentice, WR – Questionable

I'm not sure what happened to Pierre, but he posted a picture of himself in a hospital room yesterday and called it a “minor setback.”

Mike Shula returns to The Capstone on Saturday.

Through USC's media department, Shula declined an interview request before Saturday's game. Gamecock head coach Shane Beamer praised Shula's contributions to his staff on an SEC conference call Wednesday.

“Low ego, humble, hardworking,” Beamer said. “Everyone in the building thinks a world of him. He was great. Helped us a lot on and off the field.”

Shula largely works with South Carolina's quarterbacks. He is most familiar with the position, having played it himself at Alabama from 1984 to 1986.

Mike's QB is a concern for Maurice Linguist, and he should be after what the last mobile QB did to the defense.

I think any time you see a dynamic quarterback that can run and throw, we always think about that because you have the game and then you have the extended game that dual-threat quarterbacks can create,” Linguist said. “Plays that extend the 2.5 seconds of a normal play and the 2.5-3 seconds of the extended play. How do we deal with containing the quarterback's dropback situations, and when he gets out, how do we deal with discipline coverage on the back end? Plaster or man when we're in the zone, get our eyes in the right spot and make sure they don't create explosives on longer plays.”

Vanderbilt and the elimination of NLI were the hot topics on “Hey, Coach!”

You know, a lot of times the information comes out and then our compliance office comes and meets with us. “It literally has no impact, today or tomorrow,” DeBoer said Wednesday on “Hey Coach.” “But I think a lot of things will still be the same as we have done in the past. There will be other ways to retain prospects who sign with Alabama and vice versa. So I don't think it's going to be anything, at least not with the changes they're going to make – there's an SEC agreement, there's other things we have that people can sign that are binding.”

“Well, apart from the execution? That's what it all comes down to, right? It’s execution,” he said. “This doesn’t just affect the players, but everyone. The whole execution.

“I felt like we had a good plan. We had a plan within the plan, if they attack you in a different way, if – that's the case, attack, defense. You have Plan A. You have the optimizations that would be Plan B. For me it's all part of the game plan. Something you may have called more or less than you originally thought.

“I thought our employees did a good job. There's always things that you look back on like, “Oh, we could have done this a little earlier.” And the other thing is, I think you also have to be careful not to just overreact. Sometimes you have to see that look again in comparison to the defensive or offensive call that we run, and guys get another call in the process. Because it's something new or different that we haven't seen in the film before. Or different people working together.

“There is often a reason why the execution is not at the same level. But that is the full responsibility of all of us. When I say that, it's not about the players. It’s about all of us, including me.”

The P4P deals will be the binding force in the future, not the NLI. They must be accompanied by negotiable buyouts, just like coaching contracts. As for DeBoer's comments on execution, that's consistent with what I've been saying about coaching for some time. Coaching takes place 12 months of the year and determines whether the players can do the job they want on Saturdays. Regardless of the film breakdowns you may have seen in criticism, the fact is that many of those third-down conversions did and did not involve a tackle or play with the ball. In many cases it seemed to be a matter of giving up leverage or taking poor angles.

As Kalen said, this doesn't mean the players aren't good enough or have simply decided that winning isn't worth it. This means they need to work with their coaches to get better in these areas. Whether the coaches are able to reach them will tell us a lot about this staff.

Finally, Coach Kap was asked about the critical sack/fumble.

“The game before we had a good pocket, a good catch and we were preparing to increase the tempo,” Kapilovic said Wednesday. “One of their kids came over and kind of gave our quarterback an elbow, so one of our O-linemen runs there, then another one runs there, and we try to pick up the tempo. Then we try to line up to be quick and (Pritchett) makes a bad set and gets beat.”

It was the Commodores' biggest defensive play of the game as they regained momentum when the Crimson Tide missed a chance to take their first lead. Vanderbilt scored a game-winning touchdown after the turnover to open a 40-28 lead.

“We have to understand the situation,” Kapilovic added. “Yes, we want to protect our quarterback. He's a big boy. Nothing crazy happened. Let’s line up and play the next piece.”

So we were too busy with extracurricular nonsense to do the next piece. Sounds like another coaching point being conveyed. Hopefully it will be accepted.

That's it for now. I wish you a wonderful day.

Roll Tide.