Inside The Gamecocks The Show | Ellis Johnson Interview | Power Hour Mike Morgan | Gamecock Football

The South Carolina Gamecocks Football program benefited greatly during the four-season run that Ellis Johnson had as the Defensive Coordinator at the flagship university in his home state. Carolina posted a 30-19 record during his tenure and won its only SEC East title in 2010 then set a school record for wins in 2011 before he departed the program to take the head coaching job at Southern Mississippi. Johnson returned to South Carolina as an analyst under then-head coach Will Muschamp in 2016 and 2017 before retiring.
Johnson also was a key recruiter during his time in Columbia, leading the way for the Gamecocks in the Rock Hill area with Stephon Gilmore and Jadeveon Clowney, among others.
Johnson joined Inside the Gamecocks The Show and spoke with Jamie Bradford, Mike Morgan and Phil Mullinax on a variety of topics. This is the full interview without breaks or commercials. He touched on some behind the scenes information during the Spurrier era, the Muschamp tenure and the current Shane Beamer era (Johnson coached with Beamer at both Mississippi State and South Carolina) and also gave insight on how to build a winner at Carolina.
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[@wordnerd2005]

ELLIS JOHNSON IS TELLING YOU THE THINGS NO ONE ELSE WILL SAY. ALL OF OUR REALLY GOOD TEAMS HAVE BEEN LOADED WITH A LOT OF LOYAL IN STATE TALENT.

[@randyarms3920]

He was my head coach at SHS. I got switched from DB to DE week before first game senior year. I didn't know the plays. After 2nd week I went and knocked on Ellis door scared to death. I went in and said "coach, I'm whipping Dennis everyday and coach Baxley is never going to give me a chance." He asked, "you need to say anything else?" I said, "no sir." He said "I'll see you at practice." He coached DE's entire week and I started the rest of the year. Much respect. He wasn't taking my opinion or DE coach opinion. He wanted to see it. He could have said "get out of my office whiner." I think he respected the fact I had enough guts to knock on his door. So, he wanted to see if I was telling the truth.

[@ChiefSportsSouthCarolina]

Great story! Thanks for sharing it.

[@poloregal]

This is my favorite coach of all time. I wish he would have never left. It was the beginning of end. Him and Beamer leaving. He needs a permanent role on SC staff

[@postupcareers5294]

Could listen to Ellis talk for hours.

[@kevinw640]

Excellent Interview with Coach Johnson! One of the Best and Favorite Coach!

[@vikvolks7030]

Coach Ellis RoCks!!!!!!!!! BRING HIM BACK!!!

[@CarolinaJackpot]

Loved this. Can’t believe he thought Coach Boom just needed “one more year”.

[@ChiefSportsSouthCarolina]

Had it not been for COVID, we would have known in September of 2020. Carolina was set to open with three straight at home against Coastal Carolina, East Carolina and Missouri and then played at Kentucky. They could have started 4-0. That defense that year had 5-6 NFL guys on it. It would have been better in a normal year (defenses in generally were terrible in 2020). Plus, they don't open with Tennessee and Florida, though they had no excuse for losing to the Vols that year (they finished 3-7 and fired Pruitt). Who knows if Hilinski would have gotten with the program and they would not have had to start Hill without the disruptions that year. Now on the other hand, had Carolina lost to Coastal Game 1 (possible because Coastal was great that year), then you are looking a possible 10-game Mike Bobo era because the one thing that the powers that be around here will NEVER tolerate is a loss to Coastal in football. Some with influence do not even like it when Carolina schedules Coastal. Bad blood going back to when Coastal was a branch campus of Carolina. Ellis is making a normal point many others make. Most coaches think Will Muschamp is a great coach that had bad luck. After all, he took over for Urban Meyer at Florida and Steve Spurrier at South Carolina. Before that he was going to take over at Texas for Mack Brown. Those are kamikaze missions. He would have been better off taking like Ole Miss or a Baylor or somewhere and winning there and then be selective. Did he make some mistakes? Absolutely. He will tell you that. But he did serve a purpose here. He left a bunch of good players for Shane Beamer, more than Spurrier left him and more than Holtz left Spurrier, kept players in the program during the 2020 offseason (very few opt outs) which was brutal and got the ops building built (those are his plans) and from what Darren Uscher told us, it's a better and more functional set-up than they have at the University of Oregon. This is a bottom line business, though, and so it was time to move on. When all is said and done, though, the program did move forward under his watch. Beamer comes in right away and gets the Gamecocks back to a bowl then turns around and wins eight with a terrible OC most of the year and beats two top 10 teams back-to-back with a lot of players Muschamp recruited to USC. Some of his recruits are still on the team this year and will play big roles. Heck, Mo Kaba has two more seasons after this! So it's hard to say that Muschamp set things back here considering where the roster was post-Spurrier. Some on the final Spurrier staff could only count 28 players that could even play in the SEC. There were 24 players that left the program when Muschamp took over and only two ever played college football again anywhere. Certainly there will be no statues of Muschamp built here or a day to honor him, but he did do some below the surface things that support winning at South Carolina even today. Frankly, he did the same thing at Florida as McElwain won back to back SEC East titles with his players. Bottom line is we get where Ellis is coming from. Most don't see it or care for sure, but there was some good with his tenure unlike say Brad Scott who left a disaster that took a Hall of Famer like Lou Holtz two calendar years to fix.

[@wordnerd2005]

CAN'T BELIEVE HELLINSKI GOT THE NOD OVER JOYNER. IF WE HADN'T GOTTEN RATTLER , I BELIEVE JOYNER COULD HAVE BEEN A DECENT QB. HE WAS NEVER GIVEN A START UNTIL THE MAYONNAISE BOWL. MAYBE HE COULDN'T HIT THE TIRES IN PRACTICE, BUT HE WAS A FORCE IN HIGH SCHOOL. WE WOULD HAVE NEVER LOST TO APP ST HAD JOYNER STARTED.

[@jrockmedia5866]

We miss you Coach Johnson. True Legend 🤙

[@wordnerd2005]

AFTER ELLIS JOHNSON LEFT , WE DECIDED WE DIDN'T NEED TO WORK ON TACKLING DRILLS ANYMORE. WHEN WE LOST HAVING A DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR AND OUR PRIME RECRUITER SHANE BEAMER WENT BACK TO VA TECH , THE WHOLE THING FELL APART.

[@kevinjones7062]

👍👍🐓

[@wordnerd2005]

CLOWNEY WAS A FORCE. HE TOOK SOME PLAYS OFF WHICH MADE IT A 10 ON 10 GAME. WHEN HE PICKED HIS SPOTS HE WAS LETHAL. EASILY A TOP 4 PLAYER TO COME THROUGH THE PROGRAM. ROGERS ,SHARPE , GILMORE , CLOWNEY ARE PROBABLY OUR BEST 4. A LOT OF OTHER SUPER GREAT PLAYERS I'M LEAVING OUT.