Ryan Hilinksi Says Gamecocks Are Battling Two Opponents This Season

South Carolina quarterback Ryan Hilinski has made it known he wants to play, but in order to do that he said he and his teammates have had to make the necessary adjustments and so far it's paying off.

It's not secret where South Carolina quarterback Ryan Hilinski stands on how whether the season should be played out. 

The sophomore was vocal on Twitter joining the #WeWantToPlay movement. He's since shut down his social media to focus on fall camp, which started Tuesday for the Gamecocks and Hilinski said the real work begins. 

"Yeah I think the thing is, with this, we're battling two opponents. We're battling our schedule and we're battling this virus and I think the biggest thing is a mature teams are going to win," he said after day one of practice. "And a lot of our guys have been mature they've been living very boring lives like coach [Will Muschamp] likes to say and people have been staying inside because we love football. We want to be here, we want to play,an  we want to win SEC championship that's what we plan on doing. So a lot of the guys are being mature about it, a lot of guys are staying inside.

Hilinski noted that staying inside gives them more time to study the playbook for Mike Bobo's offense, which he added requires next level attention to detail. 

"He requires a lot of you. He requires near perfection because if you're not at perfection, the whole offense is messed up," he said. "You know you messed up one thing here or there, it's it's wrong. So he demands perfection and he's a really good guy off the field. He'll talk to you about devotionals, he talks about a lot of good stuff, he'll ask  about your family, but when it comes to football time we're full go, we're fully invested. He requires most of us and I love is on the field coaching. He gets fired up a lot which is good for us for sure."

Hilinksi said he feels healthy and really focused on the minute details in his own game during the off-season to ensure he'll be able to carry out the plan should his number be called. 

"Footwork was a big thing that I wanted to work on too," he said. "You know a lot of stuff that happened last year it was because of my foot work. A lot of bad plays I still think of. So I never want that to happen again so I've been improving my footwork. That goes along with knowing the playbook and knowing drops, knowing steps on runs and stuff like that."

During Monday's press conference preceding the first practice, head coach Will Muschamp said there is an open competition at the quarterback spot among others as the team tries to build the necessary depth to get through this season. Freshman Luke Doty has seen time at wide receiver. 

Other Day One Notes: 

• Wingate transfer wide receiver will wear number 81.
• Senior , who has been moved to the defensive line, is still wearing number 31.
• Freshman running back is now wearing number 25.
• Walk-on freshman wide receiver is now wearing number 29.
• Junior walk-on is working at fullback.
• Walk-on freshman is working with the offensive line and is wearing number 65.