Mike Furrey sets high standard for South Carolina receivers
New South Carolina wide receivers coach Mike Furrey didn’t mince words or shy away from setting high expectations when he was officially introduced on Friday — the standard for his room is high.
“I don’t see why USC doesn’t have the best wide receiver corps in the country, year in and year out,” Furrey said. “We recruit the best players in the country, year in and year out. And that should be our standard. And that will be our standard.”
Furrey, the former NFL wide receiver and wide receivers coach for the Chicago Bears, was named South Carolina’s wide receivers coach last week, replacing James Coley and Justin Stepp in that role.
Coley left the program to take the same job at Georgia after just under a month and a half in Columbia. Coley was originally hired to coach receivers after Shane Beamer moved Justin Stepp to tight ends, though Stepp left shortly after to coach receivers at Illinois.
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Furrey, who spent the last couple of years at Limestone, now takes over a receiver room that is going to heavily rely on newcomers this season.
While his players are currently on spring break, they’ll get back next week and start the development process under Furrey leading into the start of spring practice the week after.
“That’s something that we’re going to have to get to work on because development is not easy,” Furrey said of his high standard. “It’s not a coach’s choice. Development has to be a player’s choice first. And as we get to know these guys and my relationship with them and learn about their backgrounds, learn about where they’re from, and learn about their stories, right, and get to know them, we’ll start developing these young men. But until then, I’m proud to be here. And I’m proud to be the wide receiver coach here at South Carolina.”
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A trio of productive transfers — Jared Brown, Gage Larvadain, and Ahmari Huggins-Bruce — joined the program during the most recent transfer portal window, while true freshmen Mazeo Bennett, who Furrey recruited at Limestone, and Debron Gatling signed with the program in December and enrolled in January.
Furrey believes that his NFL experience, both as a player and coach, will be valuable in helping his players reach their potential, but he understands there’s a difference being doing something vs. imparting it to someone else.
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“I literally think the entire thing is about presentation,” he said. “It’s getting to know your players about how they learn. It’s getting to know if they’re a board guy or if they’re a grass guy. It goes all the way back to just learning about where they’re coming from, right? Their household, the way they were raised. Everything about them has everything to me of how they learn and how you can get them to open up, how you can get them to recall, right? And we’ll start that when we come back from spring.
“But I think the entire thing is presentation. And it’s not just being a dictator of, “this is what we want and get it done and that’s it, if not you’re out.” Well, you’ll never develop a young man, right? You’ll never develop him if you don’t give him a chance or if you don’t maximize the way to teach him in different ways, whatever those are. You have to find those out.”
