Dowdle is No Stranger to Overcoming Adversity
When Rico Dowdle gets knocked down, he gets back up. The senior running back has overcome a handful of injuries during his career, but he always bounces back. For his career, he has averaged more than five yards per carry, and now he wants to be sure he gets the chance to haul the ball in every game.
“Everything happens for a reason, and it all just works out for the best,” Dowdle said of his previous injuries, which have included a sports hernia, a broken leg, a bad ankle and a groin injury. “You just have to have faith and keep going.”
“Being on the sideline taught me to be humble and to be patient.”
Dowdle ran for 51 touchdowns during his prep career at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, N.C., but his South Carolina career was delayed slightly as he missed the first four games of his freshman season in 2016 while recovering from sports hernia surgery.
It was the worth the wait as Dowdle still managed to lead the Gamecocks with 764 rushing yards with a 5.7 average to go along with six touchdowns on the ground and one touchdown reception. He tallied three 100-yard rushing games, including 127 yards in a win against Tennessee and 149 yards in a victory over Missouri, before tallying a career high 226 yards in a win over Western Carolina.
He looked to pick up where he left off in year two, scoring a pair of touchdowns in South Carolina’s season-opening victory over North Carolina State. The injury bug bit hard in the second half of the season when Dowdle broke his leg against Tennessee and missed the final five games of the regular season.
“To keep me motivated, the thought I have in my head is thinking about all the hard times and thinking about my family.”
Down, but not out, Dowdle was able to return just a few months later and scored a touchdown to help the Gamecocks defeat Michigan in the Outback Bowl at the end of his sophomore season. After the game, Dowdle preferred to heap praise on others.
“It was a great play design by our coaches,” Dowdle said of his touchdown. “The o-line had to make some good blocks. I made a cut, but the play was pretty much laid out.”
Dowdle returned last year and led the Gamecocks in rushing while averaging 5.3 yards per carry and tallying three more 100-yard rushing games. The good vibes didn’t last as Dowdle injured his ankle after his first carry against Ole Miss and missed most or all of the next several contests.
“I don’t think I’ve gotten half of what I wanted to get out of my college experience,” Dowdle said of his tough luck. “There is definitely more for me to achieve and go out there and get.”
Putting his frustration aside, Dowdle isn’t one to sit back or pout. In the offseason he was committed to not only making himself stronger but getting better in all facets of his game.
“Speed and explosiveness,” Dowdle said. “I worked a lot on agility and doing things like that to improve.”
While he has a strong desire to improve, it doesn’t take much to keep him motivated.
“To keep me motivated, the thought I have in my head is thinking about all the hard times and thinking about my family,” Dowdle said. “I think about my family. I think about where I need to get, to take care of them.”
When the Gamecocks brought in another talented running back in the offseason to challenge for playing time with the addition of graduate transfer Tavien Feaster, Dowdle saw it as a way to not only motivate him further, but also to make the team better.
“I think we have the ability to be one of the top backfields in the country,” Dowdle said. “We can both go in and make plays.
“He motivates me. He pushes me to be better, and I push him to be better. I think it’s working out pretty well. We’re getting better each day just working off each other. There’s no drop off with either one of us in the game.”
As his senior season got under way, Dowdle was once again churning out yards in big chunks. Against No. 2 Alabama, Dowdle earned his seventh career 100-yard rushing game, with 102 yards on 12 attempts for an average of 8.5 yards per carry. Always a team player, he isn’t one to draw attention to his achievements. In a postgame interview earlier this year, the first thing Dowdle did was thank his offensive line, and he’s thankful for his teammates in the back field that push him to compete.
“All the backs are really close. We have a good relationship. We laugh,” Dowdle said. “The goal is to progress every week. Every week is a season. That’s how we look at it. If you win or lose, you have to get on to the next week.
“We just focus on making each other better.”
Dowdle continued to step up his game and rushed for 102 yards on 15 carries in South Carolina’s 24-7 win over Kentucky, which included a 30-yard touchdown run on the Gamecocks’ first offensive play of the third quarter. Although he suffered an injury later in that game, Dowdle would bounce back, just like he always had done in the past, and returned to the lineup for South Carolina’s next game – a win at Georgia. After suffering a knee injury on the first play against Florida, Dowdle had to watch from the sideline the rest of the day, but don’t ever count him out.
You can knock him down, but Rico Dowdle is always going to get back up.
Dowdle is scheduled to earn his degree in retailing from South Carolina in December.
