How LaNorris Sellers fits into South Carolina QB room early in his college career
Dowell Loggains need only glance out the window of his office inside the Long Family Football Operations Center most nights for a look at the potential future of the quarterback position in Columbia.
This winter, Loggains said Wednesday, he spotted freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers working through extra passes and reps under the glow of South Carolina’s outdoor practice fields. Loggains took note.
“That counts to me,” he said emphatically. “That matters.”
Sellers committed to the Gamecocks in December. He didn’t even receive an offer from Shane Beamer’s staff until Oct. 22. But in his short time on campus, he’s already starting to turn heads.
Consider South Carolina’s first-year offensive coordinator impressed.
“He’s a very quiet kid,” Loggains said. “He leads by example. He’s always here. He’s the first one in in the mornings, every morning. He’s the last one to leave when we do our winter workouts.”
To be clear, Spencer Rattler is still South Carolina’s QB1. It’s fairly certain, too, former starter Luke Doty is penciled in as the top backup. Still, the competition brewing between Sellers and former four-star passer Tanner Bailey feels like a look into the future of the position for the Gamecocks.
Bailey’s arrival in Columbia, like Sellers’, was a bit of a last-minute coup. He’d been committed to Oregon before then-Ducks offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead took the head coaching job at Akron. Bailey then opened his recruitment and heavily considered committing to Indiana before signing with USC during the early signing period for 2022.
Rated the No. 220 player in the 2023 class, Bailey drew high praise from those inside the building throughout last fall. He carved a niche as the third-string passer behind Rattler and Doty, traveling to each of South Carolina’s road trips at Florida and Clemson in November. The expectation is he and Sellers will fight for that same role this spring.
“At some point in time, you deal with the depth chart for sure,” Bailey said in August. “But if you are a really good player and put in the work, then you will get your opportunity at some point in time.”
Sellers has long been lauded by those in-state as a can’t miss prospect, but his recruitment to South Carolina was a slow burn.
Beamer’s staff had tracked Sellers for most of their time in Columbia. Questions, though, remained about how accurate a passer he could be in college, his rocket arm notwithstanding, and whether he might play a different position at the next level.
Sellers quelled most of those concerns when he threw for 2,949 yards and 45 touchdowns to just two interceptions his senior year, guiding South Florence to a 4A state championship. That was on top of the 1,337 rushing yards and 12 scores he added on the ground.
“He’s working his rear end off to try and learn everything that we’re doing,” Beamer said. “Football is really, really important to him. He runs around with ‘Pup’ Howard all the time and they are all about football. So he’ll do everything in his power to get ready at that quarterback position.”
Loggains has kept a largely open mind to South Carolina’s signal-callers and offensive personnel since his hiring in December. He told The State he was combing through the film himself before asking for in-house opinions on the roster so as to give a fresh perspective to what others on staff might’ve seen the past few years.
The answers as to what USC has, at least for this year, remain rather simple. Rattler will be QB1. Doty, for all intents and purposes, should be No. 2 on the depth chart — though Loggains and Beamer echoed one another this week saying there “isn’t a depth chart” this early in the spring.
That leaves a handful of reps to be split between Sellers, Bailey, 2022 signee Braden Davis and third-year sophomore Colten Gauthier.
The time for those QBs to battle for the starting gig will come over time, perhaps as early as next spring. For now, Sellers is turning heads — particularly that of his new offensive coordinator.
“LaNorris Sellers had a great offseason,” Loggains said. “He got some reps maybe a freshman wouldn’t get all the time because of the way he worked, the way he competed.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2023 at 3:42 PM.
