South Carolina Football: Former Gamecocks among the best players in the Pac-12

South Carolina football lost a lot of talent in the transfer portal this offseason. Several starters elected to leave the program from both the offense and the defense.

Some players have performed pretty well for their new squads (Jaheim Bell has been a steady producer and has found the end zone several times for the undefeated Florida State Seminoles). Others are not seeing the field as much as they would have in Columbia (Gilber Edmond is not getting a ton of snaps for that same FSU squad).

But two former South Carolina football stars have moved out west and are performing at an extremely high level.

Running back MarShawn Lloyd and defensive end Jordan Burch transferred to Southern Cal and Oregon, respectively, and the two players have adjusted well to their environments.

For “the other USC,” Lloyd is averaging over 100 yards from scrimmage per game, which is more than all of South Carolina football’s running backs combined. He is also averaging almost 10 yards every time he touches the football. Pro Football Focus (PFF) has Lloyd graded as the top running back in the entire Pac-12 conference for the undefeated Trojans.

Burch is tied for 9th in the country with 3 sacks for the Oregon Ducks despite only playing in three games so far this season. For reference, 3.5 was his career high prior to this season, a number he set in 2022. The Gamecocks, as a team, have just 6.5 sacks from the defensive line, and 1.5 sacks from the defensive end position. The Columbia native headed out west and seems to have found a good home for himself in Eugene, despite rumors that he was unhappy at UofO this summer.

South Carolina football has done pretty well for itself in the portal, as well. Spencer Rattler and Juice Wells were elite pickups through the portal before the 2022 season, and transfers like Trey Knox, Jordan Strachan, Mario Anderson, and Nick Gargiulo have contributed this season.

Though both players are gone (and in the case of Lloyd, the break-up was not very amicable) it still would have been nice to hold onto talents like MarShawn Lloyd and Jordan Burch.