South Carolina rebuilt interior defensive line prepares for 2025 season

South Carolina’s roster during the 2024 season featured eight scholarship defensive tackles. Only two — Monkell Goodwine and Nick Barrett — return for the 2025 campaign.

Replacing that level of talent proves to be difficult, especially when one of them is second-round pick T.J. Sanders.

Despite this, Clayton White’s defensive tackles are pushing ahead, looking to continue the production of the group they’re replacing.

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The Gamecocks filled many holes in the defensive tackle room by looking in the portal. Headlined by former Texas A&M Aggie Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy, South Carolina’s transfer class of DTs also features Troy Pikes (Georgia Southern) and Davonte Miles (Bowling Green).

Miles has the most game experience of any of the transfers, appearing in 23 games over two seasons with the Falcons. In 2024, Miles totaled 12 tackles, including a tackle for loss. He comes to South Carolina with 27 career tackles.

The group of newcomers also features two high school prospects in Christian Ingram and Caleb Williams and JUCO product Zavion Hardy.

With the replacement of everyone at the position, defensive coordinator Clayton White said they all have stood out in fall camp.

“I think guys like Monkell Goodwine has really stepped up his game and just day to day and consistency,” White said. “The same thing with Gabe Brownlow-Dindy. I love his power and strength. He’s one of our best guys in the weight room. He’s starting to bring that stuff to the field.”

Barrett is the most tenured guy at South Carolina in the room, joining the Gamecocks as a freshman in 2021. However, the redshirt senior only appeared in four games in 2024, redshirting the season. Barrett appeared in every game for South Carolina in 2022 and 2023.

“You also have the old school guy, Nick Barrett, doing a great job making plays and just being more of a playmaker than a plug,” White said of Barrett’s fall camp.

While Barrett missed most of 2024, Goodwine played in all 13 games in a backup role. In his time on the field, Goodwine totaled 15 tackles, including a tackle for loss.

“My first year here, looking at the guys that were ahead of me … I think that I could have did way better than I performed,” Goodwine said in April. “But, I did what I can do. Hopefully, if I get the opportunity this year, then I can definitely step up and make a lot of plays.

The defensive tackles also benefit from Freshman All-American Dylan Stewart lining up on the edge.

“Obviously, with the year he had last year, people are going to be like, ‘Oh, we got to stop Dylan Stewart,'” Brownlow-Dindy said. “But, you know, there’s a whole bunch of talent in the interior as well. To kind of leave that behind because they’re so focused on Dylan Stewart, that gives us an opportunity to, at least, get the pressure off of us a little bit.”

However, Brownlow-Dindy expects things to change by season’s end once the room gets a chance to showcase its talent.

“I feel like, as the season goes on, that will change because they’ll see what we can really do,” Brownlow-Dindy said.

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