Sam Pittman on Who Makes Decision on Dominique Johnson

Johnson has been working in practices this week without that green jersey indicating no contact but the media has only been able to see individual work.

"He looked good," Pittman said. "He certainly has improved over the last week and a half. We'll just have to see how he feels. He looked to me like he's ready to go. Right now it's up to him."

That's a confidence-building thing. It's not unusual for players that had a knee injury like Johnson had in the Outback Bowl against Penn State to not trust their health.

But in his first workouts of fall camp after missing all of spring practice, Johnson has moved fairly well.

Pittman talked earlier in the day about the old saying that teams improve more from the first game to the second they will all season.

"It's a little bit of pre-snap (reads)," he said. "Reading keys, communication off of that, trying to win the game on what we know mentally, trying to see the game played before the snap of the ball on both sides of the ball."

None of that is new.

It's been the case in football for decades. The bottom line is the experience gained in a game situation is really the main way teams get better.

"Go back and we learn some things on fundamentals," he said. "Throw and catch the ball better, things of that nature. We don't have a problem playing hard or playing physical. We didn't many loafs at all in the game, but you just want to be a little more crisper."

From the days of featuring dancing in the locker room after a close win over a team the Hogs should have blown out, the feeling was different Saturday.

"After the game it didn't feel like we had lost, but it certainly didn't feel like a Top 25 win," Pittman said. "That's where you want your program. At the same time you'd like to celebrate wins, as well."

That's how far the program has advanced in just a couple of years. It's hard to really throw out that number because 2020 was so chaotic it probably should have an asterisk.

Now they resemble a program ready to get to a much higher level.

"We have a mature team that's now won several games," Pittman said. "They understand we have a lot of work to do."

Beating South Carolina is another step in that process.

The game is scheduled for an 11 a.m. start on ESPN and fuboTV. Weather calls for a high of 85 on Saturday, but it won't be that high when the game starts. The good news is there's no rain in that forecast.