What new running backs coach Marquel Blackwell brings to South Carolina
Marquel Blackwell is a nomad.
If he doesn’t have a moving company on speed dial, he and his wife, Sharvettye, are expert packers and can probably tell you if bubble wrap or newspaper is easier to wrap glasses in
Recently named South Carolina’s running backs coach — taking over for the fired Montario Hardesty — Blackwell will soon settle into his 10th spot in 14 years. Only once since he became a full-time assistant (while at Houston) has the 44-year-old coach stayed at the same school for three consecutive years.
Blackwell knows how this sounds. To look at his resume is to look at a guy constantly on the move, always searching for the next gig. One can only imagine how many recruits or parents have questioned Blackwell on his moves. And when his many stops were brought up during his introductory press conference, he was ready.
“If you look at it, it was a progression,” Blackwell said, somewhat unprompted. “It wasn’t really lateral.”
Almost every move makes clear sense. Either he left for a better role or a bigger school or a coordinator opportunity or something that can be explained in a sentence or two. The only one to be dissected is Blackwell leaving Ole Miss before last season for the same job (running backs coach) at Texas A&M — but even that came with a $125,000 raise.
“(I’m) really excited about his ability to recruit,” USC head coach Shane Beamer said of Blackwell. “His ability to coach his position. And his ability to manage his room — and when I say ‘manage his room,’ that’s retaining your roster, recruiting new players to your room. It’s handling issues in that room that don’t need to make it to my office.”
Blackwell is also versed in perhaps an underrated skill in the transfer-portal era: adaptation.
For the third-straight season, Blackwell will step onto a new SEC campus, walk inside a brand-new running back room, talk to a group of players he doesn’t yet know and create buy-in quickly. That is a learned skill.
“The biggest thing is trust,” Blackwell said. “Being around those guys, they have to trust you. The next thing is being honest and up front. Holding a standard. Understanding the standard and holding everybody accountable to the standard. The next thing is communication.
“I’m not a guy who’s just gonna sit back there and say, ‘Hey, this is the only way you do things,’ ” Blackwell continued. “You have a lot of different guys that come from a lot of different places that you have to relate to in a lot of different ways.”
Good thing for Blackwell: He will be a fresh face in a room full of fresh faces. The Gamecocks do return two scholarship tailbacks — Juju McDowell (senior) and Djay Braswell (sophomore) — but brought in a talented trio from the transfer portal to make up for the loss of starter Mario Anderson, who transferred to Memphis.
There is South Carolina State transfer Jawarn Howell and North Texas transfer Oscar Adaway III, but the hope diamond of the Gamecocks’ portal haul was Raheim “Rocket” Sanders, the 6-foot-2, 242-pound former Arkansas Razorback.
While his 2023 campaign was derailed due to injury, he galloped for over almost 1,500 yards and 10 scores in 2022.
Blackwell needs no tape to learn about Sanders. Two years ago, while Blackwell was at Ole Miss, Sanders had the best game of his college career, punishing the Rebels to the tune of 232 yards and three touchdowns in a blowout Arkansas’ win.
“Talking to him the last few days, (he’s) a great person,” Blackwell said of Sanders. “Looking forward to him coming in and competing and getting this room to be an elite room in the SEC.”
