At the start of the 2016 season, South Carolina’s coaching staff was faced with a conundrum. They needed one more defensive tackle, and had to choose which end was going to move inside.
This is how Keir Thomas, who enrolled at 230 pounds and has the body type of a defensive end, found himself working on the inside.
“We could have either moved him or Quay (Lewis),” defensive line coach Lance Thompson said. “So we said, ‘Hey, Quay’s been a defensive end, let’s leave him there and have a solid player, instead of moving him to a new position and making two positions weaker.