USC Gamecocks Football
O’Mega Blake was an underdog, star, champion at South Pointe. USC football needs all 3
At South Pointe High School, O’Mega Blake was a little bit of everything.
The Rock Hill native, who arrived on the University of South Carolina campus a few weeks ago to begin summer workouts with the Gamecock football team, wanted to play quarterback in high school. (So he did, splitting responsibilities with another Stallion in his last two seasons.)
He also wanted to play wide receiver. (So he did that, too. The exposure the 6-foot-1, 188-pound athlete received at the receiver position, after all, is how his recruitment blew up in 2020 — when he received offers from Power Five schools across the country, from Michigan State to Louisville, from Virginia Tech to South Carolina. He committed to the Gamecocks in June 2020 and signed his National Letter of Intent in December.)
He even wanted to punt at South Pointe. (You get the idea.)
But the most transferable lessons Blake learned in high school? He learned how to rise to the moment as a football star, how to help an overlooked basketball team defy odds and make history — and how to be a champion.
And all of those experiences will be valuable in Columbia.
“I’m ready to get to work,” he told The Herald in an interview in June, just before he wrapped up classes at South Pointe. “Like (former Gamecock and current South Pointe) coach (DeVonte) Holloman said, there are a lot of people out there doubting us, wanting to see what we got, wanting to see what we’re going to do. We just gotta go out there and prove it.”
‘Make sure you stay on that guy’
Blake grew up in Rock Hill and came through in its youth football leagues, a critical part of what gives “Football City, USA” its name. He started at South Pointe High in 2017. Blake said his favorite high school memory of all came that year — when the then-freshman was called up from junior varsity and ultimately asked to help contribute to South Pointe football’s fourth consecutive state title.
Since then, Blake became more or less a Stallion centerpiece, the best player on the best team in a high school football-loving town.
As a senior in 2020, he was the only connection to South Pointe’s four-year football reign. And he embraced that role, Holloman said, in a way that went beyond his multi-faceted stat-line: 680 yards and seven touchdowns receiving; 182 yards and three touchdowns rushing; and 180 yards and three touchdowns passing.
“He was one of the seniors who stepped up in terms of leadership, staying on guys for doing the right things on the field and off the field,” Holloman told The Herald.
Holloman, a former Dallas Cowboy, said Blake still showed up to support the program in his final days on campus — whether he was talking trash with his brothers-by-team in the weight room, showing up to South Pointe’s spring game in May, or staying in his coach’s ear about some guys Blake, perhaps, saw a bit of himself in.
“O’Mega has talked to me about some guys that he thinks I need to stay on, like I was on him,” Holloman said with a smile. “That’s normally what his talks are with me. ‘Make sure you stay on this guy. Make sure you stay on that guy.’ He’s also talking to them, too, because he’s out there at the practices.”
Also as a senior, he came off the bench and played a substantial role in South Pointe’s first boys’ basketball state championship. In the 2021 state title game, the power forward scored 10 points, including six straight in the first quarter, and led the team in rebounds with seven.
“With football ... everybody, my whole team, they depended on me because I’m a playmaker and things like that,” he said.
He still felt the same responsibility to provide for his team in basketball, he said, even if it was in a different role and under a different spotlight: “It’s just crazy. Nobody thought that we could do it. We were all counted out. And you know, we shocked everybody.”
‘I knew it was home’
Considering his story, Blake appears to fit into South Carolina like a puzzle piece. The Gamecocks, after all, deservedly have a competitor’s edge — with two wins in 2020 and only six in the past two seasons — but they’re also home to a program with an SEC fan base that rightly espouses SEC expectations and pressures.
Blake, a longtime Gamecocks fan, is prepared for that challenge, he said.
“The first time I stepped on campus, I just felt like it was home,” Blake said. “Actually, I didn’t feel like it, I knew it was home. The staff treated me and everyone else well. The atmosphere was nice. There’s nothing like seeing them white towels wave before kickoff and the crowd going crazy.”
In his four years at South Pointe, Blake found himself at one point or another the star of the show, the underdog and the champion. In his first year, South Carolina might need him — and others like him — to be all three all at once.
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