While a youth movement was the name of the game for the South Carolina offense in 2016, it was a veteran-led and much improved defense that was the real reasoning behind the team being able to get to a bowl game. However, with eight seniors graduated off the two-deep from 2016, including four starters in the front seven, can this year’s Gamecock defense continue to build on the defensive turnaround from last year’s unit?
A year after ranking 95th in the S&P+ Defensive rankings, the South Carolina defense jumped up to 50th in the first year of the Will Muschamp era.