Nyck Harbor: 'My time is coming'
South Carolina true freshmen Nyck Harbor has been trusting the process. A process that is transitioning the former high school defensive end/tight end into an SEC wide reciever.
“With me switching positions going from the defensive to the offensive side, it wasn’t going to be like come in and (put up) 100 yards a game. I thought that’s how it was going to be,” admitted Harbor. “I just have to slow down. I see different freshmen doing what they do. My time is coming. I’m slowly building into it. I just have to keep growing. The 100-yard game is going to come sooner rather than later.”
Through six games Harbor has caught two passes for 52 yards and a touchdown. While he’s appeared in every game for the Gamecocks thus far this season, he’s been playing more in recent weeks. Against Florida, Harbor appeared on offense for 28 of USC’s 66 snaps. That was the fourth most snaps by any Gamecock wide receiver.
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“I would just say since we played North Carolina, if it was right now, today, and we played North Carolina, I feel like I would be way better. Just going in that first time was like, ‘woah.’ Everything was just big. The crowd was big. Everything was just fast. Now the game is starting to slow down for me. Just learning the coverages more. Learning the play calls faster, more urgency in my routes, how I line up. It has just been a fun time these last six, seven weeks with how much we’ve been playing.”
At 6-foot-5, 241 pounds, naturally, fans have wanted to see the former five-star ATH shine ever since he committed to Gamecocks in February. But it’s been a process. Not only is Harbor learning a new position compared to the one that he played in high school but he also got banged up during fall camp.
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“For people to just sit there and say, ‘Okay, this guy was a five-star recruit just throw him out there and let him go.’ I wish it was that simple, guys” said Shane Beamer. “People that think that don’t always have a great understanding of what playing football is like. There’s a lot. Our offense, and every offense in the country, is a little bit more complex than just, ‘Hey, lineup on the right side and run a 12-yard curl and that’s all you have to do.’ There’s adjustments and blocking assignments. We do a lot offensively and there’s motions. Once you get in the right place you have to be able to make plays and make catches.”
To put into perspective how many offensive snaps Harbor played this past week against Florida, he logged 26 snaps in his three previous games combined. From listening to him on Tuesday during his media availability, you get the sense that it’s only motivated him in all the right ways.
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“I’m just grateful to get the opportunity to start to play more snaps,” said Harbor. “It is what it is. If I play one snap, that one snap better be the best snap that I’ve played. If I play 40 snaps, then all 40 have to be good. I can’t have any mental errors. That’s what I am trying to work on. It’s not like, ‘Yeah, I made a catch and then boom I did my part.’ It’s like, what can I do to get better? Can I block better? Can I run a route better? It’s stuff like that.”
That attention to detail to get better has not gone unnoticed. Especially from his coaches.
“I’m glad that Nyck said that because he’s right, it is a process,” said Beamer. “He’s made the progress that he’s had because he works his butt off. He watches Xavier Legette every day and learns from him. Just the (amount of) time that Nyck puts into everything, it’s evident… Nyck’s up here all the time just trying to get extra work and extra meeting time in. Coaches are here at night and he’ll just pop in at 8:30, 9 o’clock on a Tuesday night just to watch tape with the coaches.
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“He’s put the time in from a mental standpoint. We also have to be smart that when we have good players we have to make sure we’re not asking them to do too much schematically that they can’t get onto the field. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying but we can’t be so simple that we lineup and run just the same two plays every time either.”
Beamer shared on Tuesday that we should expect Harbor’s role to only increase this weekend against Missouri. As far as Harbor goes, he’s only focused on stacking good days on top of each other.
“I’d say I’ve improved drastically. Every day from the starting point, every week I’ve been getting better and better. These last two weeks have been my best weeks. The better I get, the more I play on the field.”
