South Carolina football will rely on experienced mentors and an updated coaching staff to lead the team's revamped running back room ahead of the 2024 season.
Head coach Shane Beamer has not shied away from using the transfer portal to add depth and leadership to the team's roster in the past, and he continued to do so in the most recent off-season.
South Carolina finished the 2023 campaign with an injured junior Juju McDowell and an otherwise inexperienced running back room before losing redshirt senior Mario Anderson to the transfer portal and sixth-year Dakereon Joyner to the NFL Draft. In the aftermath of these events, Beamer said he knew the running back room needed more experience, as it consisted of mostly freshmen.
“There's so many unexpected things,” Beamer said. "A guy goes to the NFL before you think he is, or a guy decides to transfer that maybe you weren’t planning on transferring, and now you’ve got to — I don’t want to say scramble — but you've got to readjust. And you realize that it's not going to be from an in-high-school recruiting, (but rather) you're going to have to look to the portal for that.”
The name that headlined South Carolina's new transfer portal class was incoming senior running back Raheim "Rocket" Sanders. The Arkansas transfer was a highly sought-after prospect after emerging as one of the nation’s premier running backs.
“What a weapon he is — big, talented, physical guy,” Beamer said. “As an SEC head coach and as a fan of college football, you knew who Rocket Sanders was.”
Sanders’ most notable season with the Razorbacks came in 2022, when he rushed for 1,443 yards and recorded 10 touchdowns on his way to earning First-Team All-SEC honors. He averaged 111 rushing yards per game that season, making him one of 20 players at the NCAA FBS level whose average per-game rushing total surpassed the century mark.
Players and coaches will look to use Sanders' experience playing in the SEC as a way to mentor his younger teammates, since he is South Carolina's only incoming running back transfer from within the conference.
Incoming sophomore running back Jawarn Howell also joined the Gamecocks via the transfer portal this offseason. He said Sanders has already stepped into a leadership role despite their short time at South Carolina.
"Even with Rocket not being all the way healthy right now, he's definitely been a big part in the running back room," Howell said. "(He is) just encouraging us, and seeing him go to work every day to get back, ready to come back to us and play as quickly as possible, it plays a big role in the rest of team, knowing how he still wants to affect the team and grow as a team and make the team better, so that just pushes everyone else to go 100 times harder."
Howell joins the team with the least experience of them all. However, he is a promising prospect with multiple years of eligibility remaining.
Howell was named an FCS Freshman All-American and MEAC Rookie of the Year in 2023, when he provided 809 yards on 102 carries and scored nine total touchdowns (seven rushing and two receiving) for the Bulldogs.
While Howell is the youngest player at his position, South Carolina's more experienced running backs have contributed to his growth both as a player and as a person during offseason training, he said.
“With Oscar, Rocket, those guys, Juju — they are all going to teach you something valuable in the game,” Howell said. “You can just take that and run with it, grow with it and excel to the next level. It’s all about how you take it.”
Another player looking to navigate a new conference is incoming graduate student Oscar Adaway III, a transfer from North Texas. Adaway spent five years with the Mean Green, amassing 1,935 yards on 344 carries before deciding to spend his final year of eligibility with the Gamecocks.
Although Adaway has played college football since 2019, he said there is still room for him to grow.
“(I am) just trying to work on my speed, getting that breakaway speed,” Adaway said. “Now we are playing in the SEC, so running 21 miles per hour isn’t enough because you've got safeties out there running 22 and some linebackers running 21.”
The Gamecocks' three transfer portal acquisitions were not the only changes made to the position group this offseason. The team also hired a new running backs coach Marquel Blackwell following the departure of former running backs coach Montario Hardesty.
Blackwell spent last season as the running backs coach at Texas A&M. He held a similar role at Ole Miss in 2022 and the University of Houston from 2020 to 2021. Blackwell brings with him a lengthy resumé of experience, as he has coached several NFL players during his college football coaching tenure.
Adaway said Blackwell has already established a goal to achieve in his first season at South Carolina — to make the Gamecocks' running back corps into a top-25 unit in the nation.
"You have to have guys that are explosive, make people miss in small spaces, willing blockers," Blackwell said. "Ultimately, you want a three-down guy. Hopefully, our room is full of three-down guys."
South Carolina's running back transfers will offer experience and playmaking ability, but the group will have to do things the right way to piece together a strong, cohesive unit for the 2024 season, Blackwell said.
"Really, what we want to do is build a strong foundation where we support, take care of each other and make sure we getting better every day and doing things the right way," Blackwell said. "Looking for those guys to be leaders, you know, first of all, being a great leaders of the offense, and hopefully, we can be leaders on the team, which would develop to being a special group."