South Carolina Football: Gamecock freshman quarterback rising up the depth chart?

South Carolina football is playing its annual Garnet and Black spring game on Saturday, and on Thursday night, the coaches began “drafting” the Garnet and Black teams to create the fairest and most competitive game possible. It was expected that Spencer Rattler would start for one team and his presumed backup Luke Doty would start for the other, but a Tweet from Head Coach Shane Beamer has fans questioning the hierarchy of the quarterback room.

In Beamer’s Tweet of side-by-side pictures, Rattler was seen holding a black Carolina home jersey with the #1 on it, signaling his role as the starter for the Black team on Saturday. However, the second picture was a bit surprising. True freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers was seen holding up a garnet Gamecock home jersey with the #1 on it, seemingly showing that he would be the starter for the Garnet team.

This comes as a surprise as Doty was generally viewed as the backup to Rattler and would, theoretically, make the most sense as the starter for the other team during the spring game. Instead, Sellers gets the nod. Word from inside the program is that Sellers has been extremely impressive in his four months on campus, but his potential rapid ascension of the depth chart would be ahead of even the most aggressive expectations. Sellers is a freak athlete (6’3″, 230 pounds with speed and a cannon for an arm), so fans should watch closely on Saturday.

It is important to note that Sellers starting for the Garnet team doesn’t officially mean anything. Maybe Luke Doty will back up Rattler on Saturday to stay consistent with his role backing him up during the season. Or maybe Doty has an unreported injury. Or maybe the social media-savvy Beamer posted the photo to generate clicks and buzz about his program.

No one can know for sure. However, a wise man once gave a bit of philosophical advice that he called “The Zebra Principle.” Very similar to “Occam’s Razor” (the most obvious and simplest explanation is likely the correct explanation), “The Zebra Principle” is relatively easy to understand: “If you hear hoofbeats, you should think horses, not zebras.” The philosopher of record was Dr. Cox (portrayed by actor John C. McGinley) from the early-2000s sitcom “Scrubs,” and Dr. Cox’s Zebra Principle should be applied in this instance:

The hoofbeats from Coach Beamer’s Tweet probably shouldn’t be explained away with all sorts of complicated “zebras” that mean anything other than what seems most obvious. LaNorris Sellers seems to have ascended all the way up the depth chart to QB2 in just four months as a Gamecock, and that should have South Carolina football fans very excited for the future.