From the moment South Carolina football head coach Will Muschamp and defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson walked through doors, they said they wanted to play a defense that featured tight man-to-man coverage on the perimeter with the cornerbacks.

Each year, due to an increase in talent, the coaches have been able to do a little bit more of it but never to the level of their desire.

Now, with talented sophomores Jaycee Horn and Israel Mukuamu on either side of the defense at cornerback, Robinson envisions more man coverage than he’s been able to call before during his time with the Gamecocks.

“We’ll be more man to man. Those guys are long, can play a lot of bump and run,” Robinson said on Monday afternoon following the team’s 15th practice of the preseason.

“They’re talented. They’re confident in their abilities. I was fortunate at a couple of other schools to play with good corners. It’s a different deal when you play with corners like these guys who are lock down, shut down corners. We’re going to challenge them to go out there and play by themselves. If they can do that, we’ll be really good; if they’re not, we won’t.”

Robinson estimated that last year, the Gamecocks were in man coverage on defense around 35 percent of the time. He says he wants to be around 50 to 60 percent and wants to keep some balance between man and zone coverages because both defenses have their drawbacks.

As Robinson reminded, when in man coverage, there are far fewer eyes in the backfield, which means it can yield an advantage to the opposing offense’s run game.

But if the secondary is very strong in their man coverage and the rest of the defense can do their jobs against the run, that number may soar a bit higher than the 60 percent if the corners are just “solid.”

“If we’re really good at it, we’ll do it 80 or 90 percent,” Robinson said. “If we’re solid at it, we’ll do it 50 percent.

“It depends on how we’re playing, the team we’re playing against and what they’re trying to do. We have to be careful with a bunch of man to man against the teams who run the ball. You have a lot of backs turned with teams that run the ball. We have to do a good job of changing it up a little bit, running some zone pressures and things like that to combat what the offense is doing.”

Muschamp, Robinson and the Gamecocks have not been able to play as much man-to-man coverage as they want during their first three years leading the defense. Year 4 may be a different story, because of the ability they now have at the cornerback position.