Cornerback says he’s matured since incidents last summer
After the first day of spring practice, defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward said sophomore cornerback Victor Hampton needed to work on consistency this season, as he looks to play a bigger role in the defense.
“Vic got to play a little bit last season, and he played well at times and didn’t play so well at times,” Ward said. “He has a tremendous amount of ability, so we just want him to be more consistent.”
But when Ward talked to Hampton about his consistency, Hampton took a different message out of the conversation.
“Basically, he just wanted me to stay consistent on and off the field,” Hampton said. “Once I got everything off the field together, he wasn’t too much worried about my on-the-field.”
Though the stories are not exactly consistent, Hampton and Ward both agree he has work to do to prove he’s ready for a starting role. With cornerback Stephon Gilmore choosing to leave early for the NFL draft, Hampton feels he has come a long way from earlier indiscretions.
Before arriving on South Carolina’s campus, Hampton was arrested on a charge of underage drinking at his high school, just two days after signing his letter of intent.
After he redshirted his freshman season with the Gamecocks, USC coach Steve Spurrier dismissed Hampton from the team for a violation of team rules. A week later, Hampton was reinstated, but was suspended for the first three games.
Since being reinstated to the team, Hampton feels he has matured and has tried to “stay out of trouble.”
“I just really had to realize what I wanted to do,” Hampton said.
New secondary coach Grady Brown wasn’t around for the saga with Hampton, but he’s heard about it. After just one day of spring practice, though, Brown liked what he saw in the supposedly reformed Hampton.
“I think he’s just a young player, and we all made mistakes when we were young,” Brown said. “I believe that he’s a good person, and I’m excited to mentor him through life and through football. I think the football speaks for itself — he’s one of the most talented guys I’ve been around in my 13-year career.”
Now that Hampton has his off-the-field incidents behind him, he can focus on efficiently utilizing his athletic ability. Hampton said looking at film helps because he knows what he’s doing wrong, but the best way to improve is with getting repetitions.
With Hampton now getting those repetitions, Ward is back to coaching his in-game consistency.
“He just takes too many chances,” Ward said. “He’s got to make sure that in three-deep, he stays deep, but he plays a lot with his eyes.”
Hampton said that sometimes when he’s looking at the quarterback, he loses the wide receiver. He feels as though he can make every play. In response to taking “too many chances,” Hampton wanted to clarify what kind of chances Ward had meant.
When he realized that Ward meant in being too aggressive in his play and not in his personal actions, Hampton said it’s about “knowing when I can take the chance and when not to take the chance.”
It’s a fine line he walks outside of football, too, but Hampton said he’s farther along than where he was when he joined the team.
“I just go to class every day — I wake up,” Hampton said. “I just take every day like it’s one at a time. I don’t look too much further to the season. I just go about each day and it helps me out.”
Injury updates: Several players were held out of Tuesday’s practice.
Starting center T.J. Johnson did not practice after he suffered a sprained foot last week. Also sidelined were tight end Rory Anderson with a sprained ankle, cornerback Ahmad Christian with a concussion, cornerback Cadarious Sanders with a hamstring injury and linebacker Quin Smith was out with a back injury.
Linebackers coach Kirk Botkin is down to two spurs after his third-string spur, Marcquis Roberts, tore his ACL in Friday’s practice.