How this season has turned South Carolina into 'a popular place to be' in recruiting

National Signing Day has come and gone, and for South Carolina, things went about as smooth as they could with a few nice surprises along the way.

The Gamecocks were able to officially sign all 21 of their previously committed players on Wednesday. But they were also able to add four more commitments throughout the day.

They flipped three players committed to other schools with Zavion Hardy, Mike Tyler, and Damola Ajidahun. And they came out on top in the Christian Ingram sweepstakes when the three-star defensive tackle picked South Carolina.

As a result, the Gamecocks started with the nation’s No. 24 recruiting class and moved all the way up to No. 19 by the end of the day. There have been a lot of reasons why recruiting has been so successful this year. But more so than anything, winning more games on the field has played a huge factor in this recent surge.

“Let’s be real. If you’re winning on the field, it makes everything better. It makes life better when you’re winning,” head coach Shane Beamer said. “There’s a lot more energy and excitement when you’re nationally ranked as opposed to when you’re 2-6 and just got beat by A&M and you got Vandy or Jacksonville State or whoever we had coming to town.”

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The difference from this time last year to now is abundantly clear. South Carolina still managed to bring in a top 20 recruiting class going into 2024. But it’s been a lot easier to land talent with better game results this season.

After finishing 5-7 and missing a bowl game for the first time in the Beamer era in 2023, the Gamecocks did a complete 180 and won their last six games to finish 9-3 in this year’s regular season. As the wins kept coming, there was more national attention on the program. It started when College GameDay came to town in September and carried on from there, as the team found itself in the College Football Playoff rankings by Week 11.

Of course, they won’t be going to the playoff this year after the selection committee placed them on the outside looking in at No. 14 in Tuesday’s penultimate rankings. However, that hasn’t changed the fact that players want to come to Columbia now more than before.

“There’s just a lot of excitement inside this building and outside this building and energy about South Carolina football this season,” Beamer said. “It’s why we were able to keep this group of guys together that were committed before the season. It’s why some of these guys that weren’t committed before the season decided they wanted to be Gamecocks.

“And it’s why some people that maybe didn’t think we were going to have the year that we had all of a sudden, this week are calling us up saying, ‘Hey! Coach, you know we love you!’ Eh, you really didn’t. You didn’t think we were gonna win this year and that’s why you committed somewhere else. So don’t be calling us now.”

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Even after Signing Day, interest is still going to be at a different level. This isn’t a one-year case where things dramatically shifted. As Beamer has pointed out before, South Carolina isn’t going anywhere. And that’s why he called it “a popular place to be” for recruits right now.

“Last year, it was more of trying to keep your roster intact. And this year, those guys want to stay here because of what’s coming. And now they’ve got high school kids that want to come play with them,” he said. “They’ve got guys at other colleges are now hitting them up, meaning our players, about how much they wanna come play football at South Carolina — from other colleges. That’s different than a year ago and it goes back to the success that we had on the field. No question about it.”

Now, newfound success throughout the season has been the driving force in making South Carolina a more desirable destination for players. At the same time, the people inside the program and their values, starting at the top with Beamer, have always been an important factor in recruiting.

“I think nowadays in college football, NIL and portal, there’s a lot of things that are maybe said to players during the recruiting process,” Beamer said. “But as it gets closer to signing day, players realize that maybe that’s not real, that’s not true. We’ve just been a group that we’re honest. If we tell you something, we’re gonna do it. We’re not gonna tell you one thing and do another. We are who we say we are. We’re gonna treat you the right way and that’s not gonna change.”

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