South Carolina Football: Xavier Legette honored again for stellar season

Through the first half of the 2023 season, South Carolina football fans have been treated to one of the greatest wide receiver seasons in the history of the Gamecock program. Xavier Legette, who had under 450 yards receiving in his four years in Columbia, has exploded onto the scene this fall.

Legette has been in the top-5 nationally in receiving yards all season despite having played one fewer game than many other receivers in the country. His current pace would put him in line for 1432 yards receiving through 12 games. That would be 2nd in South Carolina football history behind Alshon Jeffery’s 2010 campaign.

If the 2023 Gamecocks can fight back and make it to a bowl game, and if Legette keeps up this same pace, that 13th game would put #17 past Jeffery’s record-breaking season (1517 yards). He is on pace to blow past Sidney Rice’s 2005 total (1143 yards), Pharoh Cooper’s 2014 numbers (1136 yards), Sterling Sharpe’s 1986 count (1106), and Rice’s 2006 tally (1090 yards). 

Only those four players (five seasons) have reached 1000 yards in one season for the South Carolina football program. Even if Jeffery’s mark doesn’t fall, his 108.36 yards per game number is in serious jeopardy.

Legette has had four 100-yard performances already this season. Only six players have put up five or more such games in a season while in garnet and black (Jeffery had 8 in 2010).

In some of the least surprising news of the week, Xavier Legette was named as a midseason All-American by the Associated Press. The AP midseason All-American team placed XL on the second-team, behind only Washington’s Rome Odunze, Missouri’s Luther Burden, and LSU’s Malik Nabers, the only three Power-5 receivers with more yards than Legette.

Legette and the Gamecocks will look to continue having offensive success and hopefully bounce back into the win column this weekend against the Missouri Tigers with a 3:30 kickoff on the SECNetwork in Columbia, Missouri.