Why South Carolina will make running back a transfer portal priority
South Carolina did not sign a high school running back for the second-straight recruiting class.
Granted, that could change on Thursday. Four-star running back Carsyn Baker — who decommitted from Florida on Monday — is set to make his college selection Thursday and is choosing from among the Gators, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Yet coach Shane Beamer said during his signing day news conference Wednesday that “we don’t plan on signing a high school running back.”
Either that is an extreme show of recruiting gamesmanship or Beamer knows for sure Baker isn’t going to be a Gamecock.
Even if he pledges to South Carolina, the Gamecocks are still in dire need of tailback depth.
At the moment — with Oscar Adaway III, Rahsul Faison and Bradley Dunn graduating — Carolina has just three scholarship running backs: redshirt freshman Matthew Fuller, redshirt sophomore Jawarn Howell and junior Isaiah Augustave.
“It’s literally impossible to go into a season with three scholarship running backs with the wear and tear that you have at that position,” Beamer said. “We need to certainly go attack the portal to be able to increase the depth.”
Beamer has always been adamant that the foundation of South Carolina’s recruiting needs to start with bringing in high-level high school prospects, and that can be supplemented with portal prospects.
How does that work at USC? Say the Gamecocks list their top four running backs in a recruiting class. Of course, they’re going to try and sign those kids. But if they don’t — rather than taking their fifth option, who might not be good enough — they can find a portal running back.
“We want to get the right guys here,” Beamer said. “We want to bring guys in here who can help us win an SEC championship and a national championship.
“And as we looked at the recruiting board,” Beamer continued, “if we found somebody that couldn’t help us win a championship, we weren’t going to bring them into the program.”
If South Carolina doesn’t sign Baker, it will be two straight years under running backs coach Marquel Blackwell without a high school running back.
In the portal, though, the Gamecocks added Rocket Sanders, Adaway and Howell after the 2023 season (and before Blackwell took the job) and then snagged Faison and Augustave last offseason.
So there is precedent for Beamer to fill the position with portal acquisitions. And he’s got his work cut out for him this year.
South Carolina had the second-worst rushing offense in the SEC (111 yards per game). Even more pressing, the Gamecocks’ three returning running backs — Augustave, Fuller and Howell — only accounted for 88 combined carries (Fuller had 72 of those), 341 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
