Why Shane Beamer thinks South Carolina will be better at RB in 2025
It took about 20 minutes for Shane Beamer to notice the trend.
The Gamecocks’ head coach was in Florence on Monday night for the opening stop along his Welcome Home Tour, just about halfway through what became a 45-minute question-and-answer session with fans.
And then a second person asked specifically about linebacker Demetrius Knight, who transferred from Charlotte last year, turned into a fan favorite and will likely be drafted this weekend. That came after myriad inquiries about how Beamer planned on replacing guys at linebacker and running back and on the defensive line.
“I’m getting concerned that we’re talking more about the players leaving our program than the ones that are coming back,” Beamer said, laughing. “I need to get back to work and clearly start recruiting.”
Beamer was joking, but it underscored the real question mark around this football team: Who the heck is going to replace the outgoing stars?
At most positions, Beamer spoke about the depth and sometimes key players who are ripe to step up. Like in the case of finding the next Knight, the head coach called sophomore Fred Johnson “the next big-name linebacker.”
But there was one position where Beamer’s outlook was extraordinarily sunny. When asked about how the Gamecocks were going to fill the void at running back left by Rocket Sanders — who is projected to be drafted on Saturday — Beamer had no hesitations.
“To be totally honest, I think we’re going to be better at the running back position than what we were last year,” Beamer said during the Q&A session. “I’m not saying that all these guys are better than Rocket. (But), as a whole, we are deeper — there’s no question.”
On the surface, Beamer’s comments can take you back. Though Sanders, who transferred from Arkansas to USC for his final year, did not have a historical season, he still put up the best year by a Gamecocks tailback since Kevin Harris in 2020.
Despite missing most of the Akron and Ole Miss games with an ankle injury, Sanders still ran for 881 yards and 11 touchdowns on nearly 5 yards per carry.
The problem: Sanders was basically the only productive tailback. He took almost 50 more carries (183) than all other South Carolina running backs combined (134). And, in doing so, Sanders totaled almost 600 more yards than the Gamecocks’ No. 2 RB, Oscar Adaway.
“Do we have just a bell cow right now that we would say, ‘That’s the guy,’ like Rocket was last year? I wouldn’t say that,” Beamer noted. “But I really feel like overall, as a group, that group can do a lot.”
That room, Beamer said, includes a “solid top four”: Adaway, Utah State transfer Rahsul Faison, redshirt sophomore Jawarn Howell and redshirt freshman Matthew Fuller.
As Sanders’ backup last season, Adaway was solid and elevated his game when Sanders sat out the bowl game, rushing for 69 yards and a touchdown. Like Adaway, Faison is also heading into his seventh year of college and has a shot at being the Gamecocks top running back after rushing for over 1,100 yards last year at Utah State.
And the two youngsters are Howell and Fuller — both of whom redshirted last year at USC. While playing sparingly last season, the pair shined in Friday’s spring game with Howell rushing for nearly 5 yards a carry and Fuller — a speedy 220-pound back — catching a pair of passes.
Which ties into another reason why Beamer is so optimistic that USC’s running backs will be better than last year.
“I think we’ll be better in the passing game than we were last year at the running back position,” Beamer said. “(We’re) able to throw the ball to them out of the backfield and have them do some different things also.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
