QB Jake Bentley part of Gamecocks’ first wave of summer enrollees

Highly-touted quarterback Jake Bentley is ready to make South Carolina his home again.

Bentley, who just completed his junior year in high school in Alabama, reclassified as a Class of 2016 prospect to enroll at South Carolina this summer. He announced that decision April 6 and is following through on those plans this week.

Bentley completed the required class work and received approval to begin playing for the Gamecocks this fall.

“It’s going to be exiting,” Bentley told The State. “I’m ready. Obviously I want to be the starter just like every other quarterback in that room. At the end of the day I just want to be the best teammate I can be and do what I can to help the team win games.”

USC coach Will Muschamp this week said all but four 2016 signees are expected to be on campus this week, with others arriving later this summer. The Gamecocks have not confirmed Bentley as being part of the program but could do so as early as Friday.

Bentley played his freshman year of high school at Byrnes before transferring to Opelika High in Opelika, Ala., when his dad, Bobby Bentley, accepted a job at Auburn. Bobby joined Will Muschamp’s staff as the running backs coach at USC this offseason.

Jake Bentley, who committed to USC on March 24, also considered playing the upcoming season at Opelika or transferring to a high school in South Carolina before ultimately choosing to reclassify and play for the Gamecocks in 2016.

“In South Carolina I took a lot of high school courses in middle school so I was able to acquire a lot more course credits than the normal student,” Bentley told The State in April.

Bentley was ranked as a four-star prospect for the 2017 class by 247Sports, Rivals and ESPN, and was rated as the No. 2 quarterback in the country by ESPN.

He will join a South Carolina quarterback race that features Brandon McIlwain, Perry Orth, Lorenzo Nunez and Michael Scarnecchia, with the departure of Connor Mitch announced last week. McIlwain and Orth were considered to be the two favorites for the job heading into the summer.

“Competition is just going to make us all better as a group,” Bentley said. “Me, Brandon, Perry and all the other guys in there have a fair chance to start, and it’s going to be exciting.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 5:01 PM with the headline "QB Jake Bentley part of Gamecocks’ first wave of summer enrollees."