How Dowell Loggains helped land Nyckoles Harbor
A lot of credit in South Carolina landing Nyckoles Harbor goes to Shane Beamer and assistants Jody Wright and Sterling Lucas. But there’s one assistant who also had a hand in landing him.
That would be the Gamecocks’ new offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, who Beamer said was “heavily involved” in Harbor’s recruitment the last month before signing day.
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“That’s one thing we talked about on the home visit with Nyck and his home visit,” Beamer said. “With Dowell and his background in the NFL, the NFL is all about matchups and getting the ball to your best players and finding ways to design ways to get the ball to your best players as well. I think that was impactful to talk about that as well.”
Loggains obviously didn’t come in with the same relationship as Wright and Lucas and certainly not Beamer, who’s known Harbor for nearly four years.
But he did have to build a relationship in a condensed six-week window since taking the job and sell Harbor on his role in the offense.
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Loggains–who spent time as a coordinator in the NFL and had a two-year stint as Arkansas’ tight ends coach–was able to talk to Harbor about his time in the NFL and being around players with size and speed similar to Harbor.
Loggains coached Chris Johnson–a 2,000 yard rusher–then helped coach Alshon Jeffery with the Chicago Bears. Showing Harbor how he might be used at South Carolina is something that caught his eye.
“Then the guys that Dowell’s been around as an offensive coach, guys with size and speed. Whether it be running backs who can run, like with the Titans when he had Chris Johnson,” Beamer said. “Or receivers he’s been around with huge size and speed attributes. Being able to talk about that and things he did from an offensive standpoint with those guys was impactful.”
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The next hurdle for South Carolina and Harbor is to be finding where he best fits.
The Gamecocks’ five-star started initially in recruiting as an edge player then things shifted to tight end and now it looks like he’ll be splitting out wide more often than not.
“My conversations as recently as yesterday afternoon it was more about that wide receiver world. Not that he won’t be doing some tight end types of things but he’s an elite athlete,” Beamer said. “He doesn’t need to have his hand in the ground blocking defensive ends 50 percent of the time. We need him out in space, running routes and catching the football.”
Landing Harbor on perception alone is certainly a big win for the Gamecocks. And it now gives Loggains another piece to work with in his first season as South Carolina’s offensive coordinator.
Now Loggains gets to get his hands more on the Gamecocks’ offense without recruiting the focus. But the returns have been good about six weeks into his job.
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“Dowell’s been really impactful with no just Nyck but all of our offensive players we’ve been recruiting. Dowel’s probably tired of being with me. He’s been with me. Everywhere I went on a recruiting trip he went with me,” Beamer said.
“We were together other than at night when we were sleeping. We were in a car, in a high school together. Being able to see him up close and personal from a recruiting standpoint, he’s been awesome.”
