South Carolina Coach Knows Why Brandon Cisse Will Be Hit With Packers

Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst isn’t just looking for players who are good at football. He is looking for players who love and need football.

From that perspective, Brandon Cisse, the cornerback he selected in the second round of last week’s NFL Draft, is a perfect fit.

“They drafted a guy who seems like, if he told me what his hobby was, as far as I know, it seems like it would be football,” South Carolina co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Torrian Gray told Packers On SI.

“He’s always looking on YouTube at clips of guys making plays or doing certain techniques and getting interceptions, because he sends a lot of them. I can get texts at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night and, ‘Hey, this is a guy, Kendall Fuller, making an interception from a three-step play,’ or, ‘This is what you were talking about out of this particular technique.’ He’s just a real ball junkie.”

That matches what Packers national scout Mike Owen said after Cisse was picked.

“Smart kid, always watching a ton of football,” Owen said. “Every time I went there, he was in the recruiting office watching the NFL, college or high school. That’s what I love about the kid. He really loves football at the end of the day.”

Cisse transferred from North Carolina to South Carolina for his final college season. During their year together, it was all ball, all the time.

“At some point, you might think, ‘Is he really being sincere in doing this?’ But that’s Brandon,” Gray said. “In my, what, 26 years or however many years I’m going on now, I haven’t had a guy to his extreme. I haven’t.”

Cisse grew up in Sumter, S.C., and dreamed of playing at South Carolina. A three-star recruit, the Gamecocks weren’t interested, so he went to North Carolina. He played off the bench as a freshman in 2023, then started all nine appearances in 2024.

Bigger, Stronger, Impressive

Having gotten bigger and stronger, he entered the transfer portal and landed with Gray at South Carolina.

“When he came in the portal and we watched him on NC State and then he came to the building, I was like, ‘Oh, man, he looks a lot better,’ because he wanted to come to South Carolina out of high school but wasn’t quite big enough. And then he went to NC State and really worked his tail off in the weight room,” Gray said.

“So, when I seen him once he got in the portal, I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ You know, he really changed his body. So, the kid’s just got a great work ethic about himself.”

South Carolina Gamecocks cornerback Brandon Cisse prevents a completion against Virginia Tech Hokies receiver Donavon Greene. | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

Cisse’s talent showed up immediately. The Gamecocks have a premier receiver in Nyck Harbor. He was No. 1 on Bruce Feldman’s annual “Freaks List” the past two years and is so fast that he qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 200-meter dash.

Recalled Gray: “Once we got him out there for spring practice and you see the change of direction, you see the movements, he’s running stride for stride with Nyck Harbor, who probably is going to be as fast as anybody who plays on the next level, and he’s holding his own there, it’s like, ‘Whoa, this kid’s really good.’”

Asked what Cisse’s best assets are, Gray didn’t focus on coverage ability or athleticism. Instead, he mentioned his “football IQ” and “how hard he plays,” and told a story from practice to demonstrate those intangible qualities.

“Someone asked what play am I going to remember,” Gray said. “One that always jumps to the front of my head: He was pressed up on a guy to the field and the guy ran a reverse, and Brandon met the guy on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

“You could just tell the effort and the burst in the play. And when you watch it on film, it’s just one of those plays you show your players like, ‘This is how hard you play. This is the standard of how hard you play.’ So, he’s got a great strain, effort about him, a great competitiveness about him. And if he can continue to bring that, he’ll have consistent success.”

Coverage-wise, Cisse is a “work in progress” as a press-man corner, which is something he didn’t do until last season.

“But with his skill-set, he can be a strong – very strong – press-man guy,” Gray said.

In zone, where he can play with vision, Cisse “understands QB progressions and things of that nature. We didn’t do it a lot here, but that would also be an asset for him to be able to play in zones and play with vision and be able to break on the ball.”

What About Ball Skills?

If there’s one knock on Cisse’s game – and the Packers downplayed it – it’s the lack of playmaking. He intercepted two passes in three collegiate seasons, including only one during his two years as a starter.

“That’s fair,” Gray said of the critique. “The only thing that I can go off of is that he made some picks in practice that made me just like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know he had that part.’ So, he does have the ability to turn over the ball. I guess the production as far as his college career is not going to say that, but he does have the ability to turn over the ball and, hopefully, he’ll be able to show him improve that part of his game on your guys’ level for Green Bay.”

Stopping the passing game is only part of the job description. Especially in zone schemes, cornerbacks are expected to be a key part of the run defense. That is a strength to Cisse’s game.

“He’s able to read and diagnose,” Gray said, “and he’s going to try to get to the runner before the ball gets going, meaning he’s great at reading his keys and he’s going to play fast and get downhill, and that gives him a great chance and he did a great job for us in that respect.”

Gray knows football and what it takes to get to the NFL. He was a second-round pick by the Vikings in 1997, but his career was cut short by a knee injury. His first job in coaching was at Maine in 2000. Stints in the NFL with Chicago and Washington sandwiched a decade-long run at Virginia Tech. He joined South Carolina in 2021.

Along the way, he’s produced an assembly line filled with NFL players, with Kam Chancellor, Kyle Fuller and Kendall Fuller at Virginia Tech, Marcus Maye, Quincy Wilson, Kaiir Elam and C.J. Henderson at Florida, and Nick Emmanwori at South Carolina among the high-profile players he’s sent to the professional ranks.

With that history, and knowing not only what it takes to get to the NFL but what it takes to be a success in the NFL, why is Cisse going to be an impact player for the Packers?

“He’s going to make it because to play on that level, you got to have some skill-set and intangibles, and he has both. He has the skill-set, meaning he can run fast, he can change directions, and then his intangibles are his football IQ. He does love football; that’s still an intangible.

“Those assets right there are going to allow him to continue to practice and refine his technique and whatever he has to learn from his playbook and those things so he can be a productive and consistent pro.”

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