Shane Beamer addresses how his outlook on transfer portal is different after spring ball

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer has already brought in eight players through the transfer portal. With the spring window allowing a second wave of players to enter, Beamer has a chance to increase that number before next season.

The Gamecocks head man opened up about the biggest difference for the spring window as opposed to the initial portal window that takes place after the regular season.

“You probably know a little bit more about your team,” he said at the Midlands Welcome Home Tour. “The only thing is when you’re recruiting Trey Knox or Spencer Rattler or Josh Simon or Juice Wells, you only know what you know about them from watching them on tape and you haven’t even seen your other freshmen that you’re bringing in.

“If you’re doing it after the portal, you’ve got a much better idea about your own team because you’ve seen your team. It’s pretty much set except for a few guys here or there. That’s probably the biggest thing. You really know ‘this freshman we think is gonna be able to help us. This transfer is gonna be able to help us. Or ‘this freshman is maybe a little bit further away. This position is more of a position of need.'”

By bringing in Knox from Arkansas, Simon from Western Kentucky and Nick Elksnis from Florida, the Gamecocks addressed a need at tight end following the departures of Austin Stogner and Jaheim Bell. They also added a pair of offensive tackles in Sidney Fugar (Western Illinois) and Nick Gargiulo (Yale).

But after spring practice, it appears that running back is the Gamecocks’ biggest position of need. South Carolina loses its top two rushers from last season and has only three tailbacks on scholarship at the moment. Beamer expressed a desire to increase the depth of that group a little more than a month ago.

The Gamecocks recently hosted a pair of transfer running backs on official visits in Notre Dame‘s Logan Diggs and NC State‘s Demie Sumo-Karngbaye. They are competing with a pair of SEC schools in LSU and Ole Miss for Diggs, while Colorado and Missouri are the main competition for Sumo-Karngbaye.

Additionally, South Carolina hosted Syracuse EDGE defender Jatius Greer and are considered the “heavy favorite” to bring him on.

Shane Beamer has found success with the transfer portal in the past by bringing in Rattler and Wells last season. It worked out as the Gamecocks finished with an 8-5 record and Wells was the quarterback’s top target with 68 catches for 928 yards and six touchdowns. With a chance to add a couple more transfers before the start of next season, he’ll hope to address needs as he aims to take another step forward in 2023.