South Carolina Football: A second #WelcomeHome is in after big recruiting weekend

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer and his coaching staff had a busy weekend at the Long Family Football Operations Facility working to replace the mass exodus of players from the program via the transfer portal. A massive weekend visitors list included former 5-stars, local kids thinking about coming home, and players who would fit positional needs on the roster.

On Sunday, just as Gamecock fans were starting to get antsy about not hearing any substantive news out of the program, Beamer announced the first commitment from the weekend, but no player stepped forward.

Then, big 4-star defensive tackle (and Bamberg, South Carolina native) Jerome Simmons announced his commitment to the South Carolina football program just before lunch on Monday. He will transfer in from Highland Community College after playing for two years at the junior college ranks.

As fans were still celebrating the Simmons commitment over their lunch breaks, Beamer took to Twitter/X again.

Naturally, just as is the case anytime there is a “silent commitment” to the South Carolina football program, Gamecock fans’ imaginations were running wild:

“Could it be Rocket Sanders?”, “It might be Jayden McGowan!”, “The Overton brothers would probably commit together, so would that get two #WelcomeHome tweets?”, “It’s probably Gerald Kilgore”, “I think Tyler Neville would be a great fit”, “Oscar Adaway is really underrated!”, “Jared Brown is sooooo good. We need a receiver like him.”

In reality, nothing has come to light yet about this second commitment. Based on Beamer’s inclusion of the #AboveAllEl23 hashtag, it would seem that the commitment is from the transfer portal (Beamer used the same hashtag for Simmons’ teaser yesterday).

The Gamecocks are expected to be very active in pursuit of talent at wide receiver, and fans should expect that Beamer and company look to add a quarterback, running back, and defensive back to the mix. With the team’s struggles up front in 2023, good players on the two lines of scrimmage are in play, as well.