W
Wes Mitchell
Guest
I'm not sure the South Carolina football universe has completely recovered yet from being flipped upside down last night with the commitments of transfers Spencer Rattler and Austin Stogner, but let's try to take a step back and assess where things are now, a day after that announcement and a day before National Signing Day.
The commitment of Rattler to South Carolina can appropriately be called a "gamechanger" for South Carolina in terms of the perception of the program under Shane Beamer from a national media standpoint and from the standpoint of other recruits. The national attention that Carolina received last night is the type of hype that money simply can't buy and, while it will be hard to quantify exactly how big the impact will be, there's a ripple effect here that could reverberate far and wide. More on that below.
To get one question out of the way again, Rattler will be considered a redshirt junior when he suits up for Carolina next season. Technically he'll have three years remaining due to that 2020 COVID season, but let's put this simply: the impression we get is that no one on either side has many illusions of Rattler being in Columbia for a full three seasons. He's already draft eligible at this time and at one time was considered the top QB in his draft class by some. Rattler will enroll for spring ball.
Just how talented is Rattler? Obviously, he had some struggles at times this past season, but it's fair to say that when expectations are as high as they were for Rattler, that people grade you on a bit of a curve. Rattler was the consensus No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in his class out of high school across all three major recruiiting services and a five-star on two of the three. I hate the phrase "arm talent" because it gets thrown around like candy, but safe to say Rattler has arm talent in spades. He can literally make every throw and from multiple platforms.
Even with his benching this past season, Rattler had the second highest grade among Big 12 quarterbacks on PFF (86.1) and had the highest in that same category during his massive 2020 season (92.5).
While Rattler will surely get more of the attention, let's not forget what a big get Stogner is for the Gamecocks and as a reminder, they were pursuing the former second-team All-Big 12 tight end as a priority whether it was as a package deal with Rattler or not - they loved Stogner on his own merit.
In fact, the Gamecocks' excellent work with Stogner, both on his visit to campus and on Shane Beamer's in-home visit, may have had greater implications than just with the big tight end. So impressed was Stogner with the program that we're told he was strong advocate for the Gamecocks in pushing Rattler to look at the school even harder. The Gamecocks beat out Ohio State and Iowa State here, no small feat by any means.
On the field, Stogner is what you would call a "dual threat" tight end in that he has the size to line up as an in-line tight end but also the catch radius and speed to be a threat in the passing game. For a guy his size, he actually does an excellent job in the downfield passing game. Stogner, as we said when Carolina started pursuing him, should slot in perfectly as a replacement for Nick Muse in that role and also should be a great complement to Jaheim Bell's skillset at the other tight end spot that's of course more of an H-back position.
We're told that Stogner is a future NFL tight end and will make an instant impact on Carolina offense.
** As Chris mentioned last night and I mentioned above, the addition of Rattler will instantly raise the profile of the program and instantly pique the interest of skill players who maybe weren't otherwise interested.
We expect South Carolina to be active in the transfer portal (that's already obvious) and that wide receiver will certainly be an area of focus.
Many fans instantly turned their attention to Oklahoma wide receiver portal entry Theo Wease and even speculated that he may be the third #WelcomeHome that Beamer Tweeted about. First of all, we can tell you that any movement between the Gamecocks and Wease hasn't gotten to near that point.
Chris first mentioned Wease to you as a player the Gamecocks were pursuing a couple of weeks ago. When it comes to portal recruiting, as you've probably started to notice, it's more about putting together a whisper here and a whisper there, with less concrete info than there even is with high school guys, and as we saw with the Johnson brothers, it can change in an instant.
That said, one of those whispers that we've heard is that Wease certainly took notice of Rattler's destination and is intrigued by the Gamecocks. Where it goes from there, remains to be seen, but at the very least we've heard enough for him to become a prospect we're tracking more closely.
Another name we're officially placing in the category of "transfer portal player to watch" is former Florida wide receiver Jacob Copeland.
Sometimes these names to watch sort of just fizzle out, other times they break the Gamecock internet when they commit like last night, but we've heard enough evidence to beleive that the Gamecocks have strong interest here and that Copeland has at least seemed open to listening.
The early speculation was that Copeland could look at Tennessee again or one of the other in-state schools like maybe a UCF, but the latest buzz has centered around Maryland and South Carolina. Again - whispers - but we'll be listening.
** We continue to track the decision of top running back target Ramon Brown and we've been led to believe by several sources that a final decision could come from Brown today ahead of his signature tomorrow.
Currently still committed to Virginia Tech, Brown's decision is expected to come down to South Carolina, Maryland or sticking with the Hokies.
Brown plays his cards extremely close to the vest, so any info past that is tough to come by. Virginia Tech folks seem confident that he'll stick with the Hokies. The South Carolina side seems neither cautiously optimistic or pessimistic, more just waiting to see what happens while continuing to push for him.
** Smyrna (Tenn.) Stewart's Creek class of 2022 kicker Upton Bellenfant is a prospect we continue to track as a preferred walk-on target and special teams coordinator Pete Lembo was in Tennessee to visit with Bellenfant last week.
Bellenfant was in Columbia for both the Auburn and Clemson games and has high interest in South Carolina as well as Alabama and Middle Tennessee State.
Bellenfant, however, doesn't plan to make a decision until the February signing day.
** Finally, not to be overshadowed by everything else that happened last night, Chapin (S.C.) WR/TE Zavier Short said last night that he'll announce his final decision between South Carolina and Appalachian State tonight around 6 p.m.
As you know, Erik Kimrey and the Gamecocks offered Short two weeks ago to play H-back in the Carolina scheme.
My guess is that you'll want to be paying attention to the announcement.
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