After months of LaNorris Sellers build-up, we’ve seen it: He’s one of nation’s best QBs
LaNorris Sellers and his brothers were never shy about verbalizing their dreams, telling everyone what they were capable of. What dreams and goals and aspirations they thought they could accomplish.
Norris Sellers didn’t want to hear it.
“Well, son,” Norris — Sellers’ father — would say, “you can tell me anything. But I’m in a show-me state. You’ve got to show me.”
On Saturday, Norris was standing just outside of the visiting locker room under the tons of concrete that make up Clemson’s Memorial Stadium. His son was about 30 feet behind him, sitting behind a podium, being asked to explain things — as if Houdini explained how he escaped a straightjacket.
Why tell when it is so much more satisfying to show?
What South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers showed on Saturday will long be remembered — and to describe it won’t do it justice. He led the No. 15 Gamecocks (9-3) to a 17-14 win over 12th-ranked Clemson, running in the go-ahead touchdown with 1:08 left, just before doubt crept in.
Leading into that final offensive drive, all South Carolina had done was prove that its flaws of the past were not just in the past — including Sellers.
In the first quarter, he fumbled for the 14th time this season, losing the ball for the sixth time. Early on the fourth, he threw his seventh interception.
“I’m sitting there thinking, ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. He’s going to bounce back,’ ” Sellers’ mom, Cheryl Ford, told The State. “He always does.”
Perhaps, but many haven’t seen it enough to believe. Houdini’s fumbling around with his jacket and everyone’s looking around at each other like, uh, is this going to all go terribly wrong?
All day, Sellers had been so elusive in the pocket. Clemson sent a blitz. A bunch of Tigers got hands on the redshirt freshman and then, voila, he was out, running and running and running.
On a day where Sellers ran 16 times for 166 yards, he scampered for rushes of 38, 25, 14, 13, 27, 27 yards and the miracle 20-yard touchdown. After the fifth or sixth time Sellers side-stepped a sure tackle, a young Clemson fan within earshot of the press box turned to his buddy and said, “How does he keep doing that?”
Who knows? But he’ll keep showing you. Which brings us to the touchdown.
There was just over a minute on the clock and the Gamecocks seemed to be succumbing to the elements, the pressure, everything. A silly false start backed them up to the edge of the red zone. It was third-and-16. It sounded like someone had put a leaf blower to the Memorial Stadium speakers.
Thinking took real effort. Perhaps that was a good thing. Maybe it was easier to block out the true stakes: If South Carolina did not score a touchdown soon, it would falter in the highest-stakes Palmetto Bowl in history. If South Carolina did not score a touchdown, it had no chance to make to the College Football Playoff. If South Carolina did not score a touchdown, a lot of dreams would have to wait a year.
When asked after the game what the play call was, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains joked: “Get it done. No. 16 has the ball in his hands.”
In reality, it was a pass play gone wrong. Sellers sat in the pocket for almost three seconds. Bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. Waiting for anyone — someone — to get open. Then the pocket collapsed. He was surrounded by four Clemson pass rushers.
“I just saw like colors flash,” Sellers said postgame. “Then I saw green grass.”
He cut. Then cut again. Then took off, running in serpentine patterns around Clemson defenders who looked as helpless as Tom chasing Jerry. He was running horizontal, just about at the first-down marker, when all of a sudden he took a sharp right turn and slipped into the end zone.
“He just hit this little zig-zag thing and it was like, touchdown,” Norris Sellers said. “And I was like, ‘What just happened?’ I have no words. You can say we’ve seen it 1,000 times, but I’m amazed every time.”
“He just turned into him,” Sellers’ longtime quarterback coach Ramon Rodriguez told The State on the field. “They had to score. And I think that’s what he had in his mind: ‘I have to get into this end zone.’ And that’s what he did.”
After the game, perhaps swept up in a wave of euphoria, South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer declared his quarterback as “the best player in the country” and urged media members to vote Sellers for Heisman.
“If you’re not voting for that guy in the mix for the Heisman Trophy, you’re out of your mind,” Beamer said. “Name a player in the country that’s done more than that kid has this year, particularly today.”
Because of a shaky first half of the season, Beamer’s plea will likely fall on deaf ears. But his first point carries some weight. What Sellers has done the past month in guiding South Carolina’s offense to six straight wins and playoff consideration is proof enough that he is one of the best quarterbacks in America.
In those past six games, Sellers is completing 67% of his passes (100 of 149) for nearly 250 passing yards a game while adding over five yards a carry on the ground. That’s for a guy who didn’t throw for over 200 yards until mid-October, who was getting sacked so often that his rushing numbers always looked mediocre.
Sometimes you don’t notice progress until the end of the year. How’s this for progress?
For over a year, ever since Sellers threw a few touchdowns late in a Furman blowout last year, Loggains has kept a running joke with Sellers’ grandma, Eleanor Ford.
She’ll find Loggains after the game. “How do you think LaNorris did?” she’ll ask. “Oh, he sucks,” Loggains responds. This has gone on and on, with Eleanor always reminding Loggains to keep telling her grandson he sucks. Someone, she thinks, has to humble him.
On Saturday afternoon, after the chaos of the win started to die down, Loggains saw Sellers’ mom standing outside the locker room
“Mama Sellers,” Loggains hollered. “I told grandma he doesn’t suck anymore.”
“Perfect,” Ford responded. “Finally.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2024 at 7:00 AM.
