RB Kevin Harris is having South Carolina football’s best season since 2013.
Midway through the year, most of the usual suspects sit atop the SEC’s rushing rankings. Alabama’s Najee Harris, not surprisingly, leads the conference, Jerrion Ealy at Ole Miss and Isaiah Spiller at Texas A&M are building on a fantastic freshman seasons, and Missouri’s Larry Rountree is finishing out his career with the Tigers with yet another productive campaign.
But one name sticks out, and no one would’ve predicted that he’d be the league’s second leading rusher at this point in the year.
South Carolina’s Kevin Harris has rushed for 535 yards through the Gamecocks’ first five games, averaging 107 yards on the ground each contest. He’s tallied three 100-yard games in his last four appearances, and sits at second on the leaderboards in rushing touchdowns.
Harris is on pace to become South Carolina football’s first 1,000 yard rusher since 2013, even with the schedule being condensed to just 10 games. Let’s look back at the underdog’s path to earning the starting running back role, and see how he’s been able to sustain success in the Gamecocks’ ground game.
HARRIS’S PATH
Kevin Harris came to Columbia as a relative unknown. Part of the 2019 recruiting class, he was rated as a three-star prospect and the 93rd best player in his home state of Georgia. Harris signed with the Gamecocks over offers from Air Force, Army, The Citadel, Cornell, Elon, Furman, Kennesaw State, Mercer, Middle Tennessee State, Navy, Tulane, and Wofford.
South Carolina was his only Power Five scholarship offer.
After joining the Gamecock roster, Harris would see his first action last year in a week two matchup with Charleston Southern, where he made a quick splash. The 225-pound bruiser ran for 147 yards and three touchdowns on just six carries, forcing people to take notice of his downhill running style and game breaking ability.
Unfortunately, injuries hampered his progression and he saw action in just a handful of games throughout the rest of the season.
Entering this year, many had forgotten that offensive explosion early in 2019, and expected that the sophomore would fall to third or even fourth on the depth chart.
Harris had other plans.