South Carolina Football: Gamecock transfer portal quarterback targets ranked in top-10 available

South Carolina football fans have been very happy with the Gamecocks' efforts in the transfer portal.

After some serious hand-wringing last week when the Gamecocks had 17 players announce intentions to leave the program, the dust settled, and Shane Beamer and the South Carolina football coaching staff settled the fanbase.

Seven potential immediate-impact players have committed to the South Carolina football program already (Jerome Simmons, Jared Brown, Oscar Adaway, Rocket Sanders, Jayden McGowan, Deandre Jules, and Jawarn Howell), and an 8th commitment was teased out by Beamer on Thursday.

The Gamecocks aren't done mining the depths of the transfer portal, either.

USC is expected to add a quarterback before the cycle ends, and they are kicking the tires on good players at almost every position other than running back.

One quarterback has been on campus already to visit the South Carolina football program. Vanderbilt defection AJ Swann started for the Commodores at times in both 2022 and 2023 but finished the 2023 season as the backup after an injury.

Another big-name quarterback, former 4-star prospect and Texas Longhorn Maalik Murphy, is on the Gamecocks' radar. According to Pete Thamel of ESPN, seven schools (including Carolina) have been checking in on the talented athlete. It is too early in his transfer portal recruitment to know how much mutual interest is there.

On Friday, On3's Nick Schultz released his "Top-10 Available Quarterbacks" in the transfer portal list. Both Swann and Murphy made the list, coming in at #10 and #7, respectively.

At this time, Swann seems like a more realistic option for the Gamecocks than Murphy (who is leaving Texas, presumably, for playing time reasons), and whoever South Carolina brings in at the quarterback position has to be fine with real competition because rising redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers has no plans to let go of the starting job.

There will be no guaranteed playing time for a portal quarterback in Columbia, but ideally, a quarterback battle between the uber-talented Sellers and a veteran transfer would bring out the best of whichever player wins the job.