Why South Carolina is trying to build its offensive line through high school ranks
Georgia football coach Kirby Smart likes to equate the transfer portal to the grocery store.
“You can’t go get groceries unless you know what you have at home,” Smart said during his signing day press conference. “We have to be careful that we don’t get more bottled water than we need when we’ve got to get more bread to match up with our sandwich meat.”
That goes a little further, too. If you do have to go to the grocery store (the transfer portal) — and everybody does — wouldn’t you rather just have to pick up a few bananas than a tin of caviar?
Bananas are everywhere. They are the skill-position players across America who are in abundance, either from SEC schools or Group-of-Five colleges putting up gaudy stats. If nothing else, there are plenty of receivers and running backs available — and even if a few aren’t ripe, you can grab a whole bundle and pick from there.
The caviar are the offensive linemen. They are not just in great demand, but they are tough to find. What aisle of the local Food Lion houses caviar? No one knows.
Because it takes college offensive linemen longer to develop and longer to see actual playing time, there are far fewer ready-made offensive linemen in the transfer portal than any other position.
Most of the available trench warriors are former three- and four-star prospects who have been in college for a few years and have almost no film to show for it. Or graduate transfers from smaller schools.
The Colorado Buffaloes, under coach Deion Sanders, are trying to buy caviar in bulk at the grocery store. Last year, Colorado tried to go against the norm, building almost its entire offensive line through the transfer portal. They added seven guys … and still ranked No. 129 nationally, or second-to-last, in sacks allowed last season.
It is extremely hard to find caviar when it’s not sitting at home on your pantry shelves.
South Carolina knows this, and it’s becoming evident that coach Shane Beamer is prioritizing high-school offensive linemen so he can focus his portal efforts on positions that are more readily available — like running backs or wide receivers.
Granted, the Gamecocks can still add pieces through the transfer portal. In the most-recent signing class (which included 15 prep prospects, eight kids through the portal and one via junior college), South Carolina signed three offensive linemen from high school without grabbing a single O-lineman from the portal.
The three were all tackles. All from South Carolina. And all highly sought-after:
▪ Dillon High’s Josiah Thompson was a five-star and 247Sports Composite’s No. 37 player in the country;
▪ Woodland High’s Kam Pringle was a top-170 player in America;
▪ Blake Franks from Greenville High was the No. 7 player in South Carolina.
“When I got hired three years ago this month, those three guys got put on my radar pretty quickly,” Beamer said of the trio. “You immediately just start developing relationships and try to get those guys on your campus.
“Once they got on campus, they just fell in love with this place and we fell in love with them and just continued to strengthen those relationships,” Beamer added. “They’re great players and when you have great players — not just the three tackles, but a lot of kids in our class — a lot of schools were trying to get them to not come to South Carolina.”
If you go back a year, you see a trend. In the 2023 class, South Carolina pulled in another quartet of highly-rated offensive tackles: Markee Anderson, Tree Babalade, Trovon Baugh and Jatavius Shivers.
In Beamer’s first four classes at South Carolina, the Gamecocks have signed 12 high school offensive linemen to just two transfers at the position (Nick Gargiulo from Yale and Sidney Fugar from Western Illinois). In that same span, USC signed 11 high school wide receivers while adding seven out of the portal.
“You’re always looking — can you better your team at every single position?” Beamer asked. “That’s my job as the head coach — to consistently increase the competition, the depth and talent level at every single position.”
So while Beamer knows he has stockpiled a number of talented, young offensive linemen on the Gamecocks, he also knows no team in college football will turn down a ready-made offensive lineman who’s ready to contribute right away.
“We’re in a really good position (with our offensive linemen) but, as we saw this year, you can never have enough there,” Beamer said, alluding to the Gamecocks’ myriad injuries at the position in 2023.
South Carolina is seemingly trying to build its offensive line room from the ground up. Recruit really good high-school linemen, give them the time to develop and the Gamecocks hopefully won’t need to go after the position in the portal.
In other words: Buy the caviar in bulk when it’s on sale so you can shop for everything else at the grocery store.
This story was originally published December 28, 2023 at 12:00 AM.
