South Carolina Football: Former Gamecock finds a new home in the transfer portal

South Carolina football fans have been inundated with news updates surrounding their team over the past few weeks; coaching firings, coaching hirings, coaching positional changes, transfer portal commitments, and transfer portal losses have dominated the headlines around Columbia. Oh, yeah: basketball is in full swing as well.

So it makes sense that some news flies under the radar.

One such under-the-radar piece of news from this past week is that former South Carolina football offensive lineman Grayson Mains found his new home after spending the last several weeks in the transfer portal.

Mains announced this week that he had committed to play next fall with the Temple Owls.

During his Gamecock career, Mains did not play much. Technically, he was listed on the official depth chart as the backup center for most of the 2023 season, but when Vershon Lee moved to right tackle, guard Nick Gargiulo moved over to center, and other players (like Jakai Moore) got most of the snaps at guard. Though Mains was officially on the 2-deep, he was not on the realistic 2-deep.

The lack of a future at Carolina prompted a transfer, but he has found a home with Temple. Former Gamecock defensive back Dominick Hill just graduated from Temple and has entered the transfer portal with the intention of playing somewhere else as a graduate transfer in 2024. He and Mains did not overlap in Columbia.

Mains is not the only offensive lineman who entered the transfer portal this cycle from the South Carolina football program. Multi-year starter Jaylen Nichols, who missed the 2023 season with a torn ACL, also has hit the portal. He has not committed anywhere as of yet, but North Carolina has long been rumored as a potential landing spot for the Charlotte native. JonDarius Morgan, a little-used reserve, is returning home to Alabama to play for UAB.

USC has brought in two offensive linemen through the transfer portal to help mitigate the impact of their losses. FCS All-American Torricelli Simpkins (North Carolina Central) and Aaryn Parks (Oklahoma) both will battle for a spot in the 2-deep up front this spring.