It’s official: QB Landon Duckworth signs with South Carolina
Four-star quarterback Landon Duckworth signed with South Carolina on Thursday. At long last.
Much of Wednesday’s signing day was spent wondering what the heck Duckworth was thinking. It was reported early in the day that LSU — and its new head coach Lane Kiffin — had begun to sway Duckworth. At one point Wednesday morning, Rivals recruiting expert Steve Wiltfong logged a prediction for Duckworth to flip to LSU.
Heck, South Carolina coach Shane Beamer held his signing day press conference at 2 p.m. — still unsure if Duckworth was going to sign. He sounded confident, but unsure.
When asked about this Wednesday evening, Duckworth’s mom — Tiffany Campbell — told The State that LSU did reach out to her son but the talk of him flipping was just a rumor. As for why his paperwork took longer than expected to go through, she said it had been a busy and stressful day ahead of Duckworth playing in the Alabama 4A state championship game on Friday.
In any case: All of South Carolina’s commitments are all signed or signing as expected.
Duckworth, the 6-foot-3, 195-pound dual-threat QB from Jackson, Alabama, becomes the highest-rated quarterback signed by USC head coach Shane Beamer. Per the 247Sports Composite rankings, he was the No. 10 quarterback and No. 132 player overall in the nation.
He’s also the Gamecocks’ fourth-best-rated prospect in what was a sparse but strong 2026 recruiting class. (Nine of the 14 signees were four-star recruits.)
Duckworth originally committed to South Carolina just before his sophomore season, but he decommitted soon after to actually go through the whole recruiting process. And so he did.
He went on plenty of visits. Spoke with tons of coaches. Thought about the possibility of playing football at other places. And then, he ended up right back where he started and committed to the Gamecocks this summer.
And while he did take one visit to LSU in September, that was under now-fired head coach Brian Kelly. Even more: Duckworth claimed he was shutting down his recruitment in November.
Problem was: That didn’t stop other schools from still trying to lure him away.
“In the last two days, (there have) been two more schools that have actually said something to him,” Campbell told The State, on Nov. 20. “I still don’t think Landon is interested, I can say that. But I thought shut down meant that it was automatically off limits, but I guess not.”
What Campbell also mentioned to The State: Her son was not making a decision based on money. While she wouldn’t say how much South Carolina offered her son, she noted they presented a two-year contract and was clear that other schools offered far a far-more lucrative NIL package.
“Landon was never looking at money,” Campbell said. “Because if he was, he would be at other places.”
With Duckworth signed, South Carolina’s quarterback room includes four scholarship players: starter LaNorris Sellers, freshman Cutter Woods, redshirt freshman Air Noland and Duckworth.
When asked if South Carolina would seek out another quarterback, Beamer — before he knew of Duckworth’s signing — noted it’s a real possibility.
“I think you certainly have to keep your options open, from that standpoint,” he said.
