Shane Beamer describes how he is challenging Nick Emmanwori this offseason

After he emerged as a star for the South Carolina Gamecocks as a true freshman, Nick Emmanwori‘s offseason will be instrumental in helping him turn from a freshman sensation to a dominant all-around college football player.

To that end, third-year coach Shane Beamer has had some relatively straightforward advice for the talented safety.

“I think my conversations with him have really been more you did do a lot of good things but don’t lose that edge,” Beamer said last week at the Midlands Welcome Home Tour event. “Don’t lose sight of the fact that no one last year at this time knew who you were. And I don’t mean that in a negative way.”

An injury to starting safety RJ Roderick in the first game of the season thrust Emmanwori into the spotlight.

Before that he was a lightly recruited and little regarded defensive back out of Irmo, S.C., a town with fewer than 13,000 residents according to the most recent census data.

“Like when we put together our recruiting class, nobody was excited necessarily about Nick Emmanwori from Irmo High School,” Beamer said. “We were, but the general public, there wasn’t a lot of expectations.

“Then he didn’t start Game 1. Then obviously he came in after we had an injury in Game 1 and the rest is history.”

Playing in place of Roderick, Emmanwori managed to rack up an impressive array of stats. In his first two starts he totaled 11 tackles and then 14 tackles, proving he could be quite dependable in the back end.

He finished the season with 85 tackles, 1.0 tackles for a loss and a pass defended.

Going into the 2023 offseason, Nick Emmanwori boasts a handful of recognitions and honors. He was named a 2022 Freshman All-American by ESPN.com, Pro Football Focus and On3. He was also named to the Coaches’ Freshman All-SEC team and finished as a Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year semifinalist.

To Beamer, that was all about how Emmanwori applied himself and worked.

“He did a great job last season of having an edge about himself and continuing to get better and better,” Beamer said. “So that’s the thing that I’ve just continued to challenge him on and all of us have, just don’t lose that edge, don’t lose that hunger, which he won’t. He comes from a great family.

“But then just realizing there’s so many other things that you can continue to be great at, knowledge of the defense and understanding what’s going on around you, not just at the safety position, but the other 10 guys around you also.”

Before he got to his first college offseason, Nick Emmanwori was a four-star recruit in the 2022 class, ranked No. 325 overall in the class. He was evaluated as a linebacker, ranking 33rd at that position, while checking in as the No. 6 overall player in the state of South Carolina.