LaNorris Sellers explains decision to turn down other offers, return to South Carolina

It was reported over this offseason that other programs tried to get South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers to leave the Gamecocks. However, he already had it all in Columbia.

Sellers addressed why he stayed at South Carolina during his press conference at SEC Media Days in Atlanta on Monday. He didn’t have much to consider with everything currently in a place for him there in a place that’s also his home state school.

“Everything I needed was in South Carolina,” said Sellers. “Like, I grew up there, my family is there. Anything I needed was an hour and five up the road from me. The school pretty much takes care of, like, rent and all that so it’s not like you really need too much, like, you know what I’m saying.

“Everything I need is in South Carolina. There’s no point in me going somewhere to start over.”

Sellers surely would’ve commanded quite a price on the open market had he chosen to transfer elsewhere based on what he already did in his first year as a starter and where his development could go in his second in college. The Heisman candidate and a projected top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, though, didn’t go anywhere with him back to carry the Gamecocks this fall.

Shane Beamer on schools trying to lure Sellers away: ‘Why the hell would you leave?’

Tampering is an unfortunate reality in college sports nowadays. That came up again AT SEC Media Days on Monday as Shane Beamer revealed how he dealt with concerns of other teams tampering with QB LaNorris Sellers.

“I think he knows, one, this is home and he has everything that he needs here to be successful,” Beamer said. “We didn’t have a lot of in-depth conversations in regards to, ‘Hey, man, I really want you to stay and are you leaving?’. I don’t know if we had that conversation because, maybe I was naive, but I knew he loved it here.

“He’s coming off a season as a starting quarterback where he wins nine games. He’s playing as well as any quarterback in the country in the last season. He’s coming back on a really good team and he loves being here. Like, why the hell would you leave? And excuse my language. But, I mean, I know money is an aspect of it, but it was also don’t mess with happiness either. He’s got a great situation here.”

Shane Beamer believes there’s no better place for Sellers than South Carolina.

“He knows that everything he wants to accomplish, he can here at South Carolina, on and off the field,” Beamer said. “He’s doing great academically. He’s doing an internship this summer with a construction company for his major. And he’s taking the next step football-wise. So, maybe I just had my head in the sand and wasn’t very aware of what was really happening.

“Don’t get me wrong. We had conversations. I talked to he and the family when we had an offensive coordinator opening and wanted to kind of see where he (was) on that. So, we’re always communicating. I also know that we got a really good thing going for South Carolina, not just for him but for our entire team. And guy’s enjoy being part of this program, and they know that they can reach all their goals and accomplish their dreams here.”