Heisman Trophy candidate ready to surpass 2010 honors
One would think that pre-game jitters would be a thing of the past for Marcus Lattimore, but with Saturday’s season opener fast approaching, the sophomore tailback said nerves still get to him before he takes the field.
“Once I get hit, I think I’ll be fine,” he said, jokingly.
With that mindset, Lattimore is once again ready to anchor South Carolina’s running game, and with an All-SEC season under his belt, he believes the best is yet to come.
“I’ve been studying more than I did last season, watching a lot more film,” Lattimore said. “I think I’ll make better decisions running and catching. I know our protection [schemes] pretty good, so I expect myself to be better in all three phases. I think the game will slow down more than it did last year.”
Although he’s refined his skills at running and catching, Lattimore has no doubt about his greatest area of improvement this offseason.
“Definitely blocking,” he said. “With 270-pound [defenders] coming at you full speed, you’ve got to make a decision. There were a lot of mistakes I made last year in blocking, but I think they’ll be minimized this season.”
Adding to his own development, the Heisman Trophy candidate is also pleased with the strides made by his fellow running backs, believing the depth at the position will pay great dividends as the season goes along.
“That keeps all of us fresh,” Lattimore said. “We can get the speed of [freshman Shon Carson] and the quickness of [redshirt junior Kenny Miles], and then I’ll just go in there and do what I do.”
While redshirting Carson and fellow freshman Brandon Wilds has been a possibility throughout the preseason, running backs coach Jay Graham said the pair’s performance in practice makes him believe they’ll be ready to handle the challenges of an SEC schedule this season.
“They’ve proven that they can play, and that’s what we look at as criteria; whether they’re physically ready to go and if they’re mentally ready to handle being in a game situation,” Graham said. “They’ve done those things in scrimmages and I think they’re prepared, but we’ll see once the game starts.”
In spite of his confidence in their preparation, however, Graham said he’ll still be anxious when game time rolls around.
“As a coach, you just hope everybody’s ready to go,” Graham said. “That’s what we do. But I’m ready for the game to get started, and I think our guys are too.”
The increased number of game-ready tailbacks raises a possibility of fewer carries for Lattimore, an idea he’d be welcome to if the situation called for it.
“It’s a great feeling to get some breaks,” he said. “I’ve got three great backs behind me. They’re going to get a lot of carries that will help us out a lot. With fresh legs coming in the game, it’s going to be really hard for a defense to stop that.”
If the situation calls for him to run the ball 40 times, however, he said he’d be OK with that as well.
“It’s cool with me,” Lattimore said. “If we have to do that in order to win the game, that’s what we have to do. I’m fine with it.”
It’s no secret that Lattimore enters the season with a large spotlight following him as he goes, but he said he doesn’t keep up with his increased attention from the national markets.
“I don’t watch ESPN anymore,” Lattimore said, jokingly. “I’ll get texts from people sometimes saying, ‘You’re on ESPN, you’re on ESPN,’ but I just come out here and work hard and try to help the team.”
Along with keeping clear of the hype himself, he’s confident his team won’t let preseason predictions get the better of them in 2011.
“We know what we have to do,” he said. “We’re going to listen to our coaches, run our plays and if we execute, we should be fine. It’ll happen how it’s supposed to happen.”