South Carolina Gamecocks News: Football recruiting update, baseball in first place, basketball transfer news, more
By Kevin Miller
Here’s the latest South Carolina Gamecocks News, starting with the big recruiting week for Shane Beamer’s football program.
After securing a massive commitment from Josiah Thompson at the end of the previous week, the Gamecocks showed they were not done. Shane Beamer tweeted out two #WelcomeHome messages on Tuesday night and a third on Wednesday morning. All three commitments made their pledges public on Wednesday. Coach Beamer credited the fan atmosphere at and surrounding the spring game with helping seal the deal on these recruitments.
In-state 4-star safety Kelvin Hunter announced his commitment at about noon on Tuesday.
At about the same time, 3-star offensive lineman Mike Williams pledged himself to the Gamecocks.
Just a couple hours later, 4-star corner Braydon Lee (a high school teammate or Williams and of current Gamecock Desmond Umeozulu) became the day’s third commitment.
The commitments shot the Gamecocks up the recruiting rankings. South Carolina football is now ranked 5th nationally by On3 for the 2024 cycle and 6th nationally by 247Sports. With the Gamecocks still in the mix for a slew of talented players, there is optimism around the program that the Gamecocks’ final team recruiting ranking for 2024 might also be this high.
The football team has received some positive feedback from a trio of 2024 running backs.
Anthony Carrie, a 4-star by some recruiting services and a 3-star by others, is considered a heavy lean to the Gamecocks, but North Carolina and Michigan State are not out of the picture.
Daniel Hill, a big consensus 4-star, was at the Garnet and Black Spring Game and had tons of good things to say about the Gamecock program. His recruitment is viewed as a tossup between the Gamecocks and the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Peyton Lewis is a speedy 4-star who called South Carolina and Tennessee his “co-leaders” recently.
The South Carolina football team lost a player to the transfer portal.
Reserve offensive lineman Colin Henrich hit the portal. A legacy, Colin’s father Chuck played for Carolina in the 90s.
ESPN released their preseason FPI (Football Power Index), and for some reason, the computers in Bristol, Connecticut were not very kind to the Gamecocks.
According to the FPI, the Gamecocks are the 13th-strongest team in the SEC, only ahead of Vanderbilt. Based on the projection system, the Gamecocks would be the inferior team in every game on their schedule except for in their matchups against Vanderbilt, Jacksonville State, and Furman.The projection would predict a record between 3-9 and 6-6 for the Carolina regular season. This projection is an outlier and doesn’t match how most projections (done by computers or by human beings with actual brains) view the Gamecocks.
In fact, a newspaper out of Knoxville, Tennessee (the Knoxville News Sentinel) has projected Spencer Rattler as the top SEC East quarterback for the 2023 season. If Rattler outplays the rest of the conference, Gamecock fans can guarantee a significantly better season than the ridiculous FPI projection.
Tons of mock drafts have been released in anticipation of next week’s NFL Draft.
South Carolina alums Cam Smith, Darius Rush, and Zacch Pickens are expected to be drafted in every projection, likely in the top-100 picks. A handful of other Gamecocks (Jovaughn Gwyn, Josh Vann, Nate Adkins, Eric Douglas, Dylan Wonnum, and Jalen Brooks) have a chance to be picked, as well. Gwyn is the most likely of this group to be selected.
The South Carolina baseball team swept the #3-ranked Florida Gators.
Final scores of 13-3, 5-2, and 7-5 saw the #6-ranked Gamecocks sweep the Gators on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Injuries have not held back Carolina from continuing to roll. Despite missing Noah Hall (back), Will McGillis (arm), Talmadge LeCroy (hamstring), and Gavin Casas (lung; left Thursday’s game), the Gamecocks have maintained their hot play. Carolina pitching held the top-5 Florida offense to under 10 runs for the series, and Ethan Petry continued doing Ethan Petry things, adding a home run and breaking Justin Smoak’s freshman RBI record.
The transfer portal is heating up across the college basketball world.
For the Gamecocks, last week saw a big commitment from Vanderbilt transfer combo forward Myles Stute. Stute is a 6’7″ sharpshooter who has significant starting experience in the SEC. He has played lots of minutes at the 3 and the 4.
Wofford defection BJ Mack, a 6’8″, 245-pound forward, was on campus over the weekend for an official visit. After the visit, Mack shut down his recruiting process. This is usually a good sign for a team who got the last visit, but it is far from a guarantee that Mack will end up in Columbia. He plans to make his decision public by May 4th. His finalists are South Carolina, LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, and Iowa.
The portal is a big storyline in the women’s game, as well.
After hiring assistant coach Winston Gandy from Duke, the Gamecocks were hopeful about their chances to bring in the Blue Devil’s starting backcourt. However, both Celeste Taylor and Shayeann Day-Wilson committed elsewhere last week. (Taylor to Ohio State and Day-Wilson to Miami).
In better news, Aneesah Morrow put the Gamecocks in her top-3. The rising junior forward is transferring from DePaul and averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds a season ago. Her top-3 is South Carolina, LSU, and Southern Cal, and she seems legitimately interested in all three programs.
The Gamecocks are also in on several other targets, and Dawn Staley tweeted out her typical “a birdie flew into the nest” to signify that someone has committed to the Gamecocks. Fan speculation has centered around 6’5″ forward Sakima Walker, the top-ranked junior college player from last season, but no details have come out yet.
South Carolina > Clemson.
Once again, the University of South Carolina Athletics Department reigns supreme over that school from the Upstate. Carolina officially won the Palmetto Series. The Gamecocks have never lost to the Tigers in the athletics-wide competition.
College football has some big rule changes in place for the fall.
- Teams will no longer be able to call back-to-back timeouts barring injury. This is set to lessen the amount of time that is wasted while a team attempts to “ice” an opposing kicker.
- Defensive penalties at the end of all quarters previously granted an untimed down to the offense if accepted. Now, the untimed down will only be awarded if it occurs at the end of the second or fourth quarter (the end of the two halves). If a defensive penalty occurs at the end of the first or third quarter, the results of the penalty will be assessed at the beginning of the next quarter as normal.
and most impactfully…
- First downs will no longer result in a clock stoppage as usual. Previously, a first down would stop the clock until the referee set the ball for the next play. Now, the clock will run the entire time between plays, even if a first down was earned. The exception to this rule change will be seen in the final two minutes of the half: referees will stop the clock until the ball is set between plays if a first down was gained on the previous play.