With 28 days until South Carolina football kicks off the 2025 season, a look back at No. 28 Mike Davis

South Carolina football will take the field for the first time in the 2025 season on August 31st when the Gamecocks take on the Virginia Tech Hokies in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. That means kickoff is just 28 days away.

Several really good players have worn the No. 28 for South Carolina. Cornerback Darius Rush was the most recent NFL Draft selection who wore the number. Perhaps the top name that comes to mind, though, is running back Mike Davis.

Not to get confused with a running back from several years earlier with the same name (he wore No. 25), Mike Davis 2.0 played for head coach Steve Spurrier from 2012-2014 after picking USC over SEC rivals like Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida and in-state rival Clemson, the school where his older brother, James Davis, had played. As the heir to Marcus Lattimore, Davis didn’t play a bunch in 2012 behind the Gamecock legend, but he soon established himself as a Carolina great after the former’s departure.

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Davis opened his tenure as the Gamecocks’ starter with a bang, taking a carry 75 yards to the house against North Carolina in the 2013 season opener. The run was the first of 11 touchdowns as he registered over 1500 yards of offense as a sophomore. Davis was a shoo-in for All-SEC honors.

A physical runner with soft hands as a receiver, Davis logged another 1350 yards and 11 touchdowns as a junior. That same season, Davis delivered one of the most vicious stiff arms in program history, throwing a Furman defender off of him so violently that, at one point, the top of his helmet was the only part of him touching the ground.

In just two years as the starting running back in Columbia, Davis had 11 100-yard rushing performances. Davis is tied with Marcus Lattimore, Brandon Bennett, and Harold Green with 11 such performances. He finished the 2013 season with the fourth-most single-season rushing yards (1183) in program history. Davis is also one of only two South Carolina players with multiple 75-yard runs in his career (joining Kevin Harris), and he is the only one to do it twice in the same season.

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Following his decision to forego his senior season, Davis earned NFL Draft selection. The San Francisco 49ers picked him in the fourth round of the 2015 NFL Draft. He spent eight seasons in the NFL. Most notably, he tallied over 1000 yards of offense during the 2020 season with the Carolina Panthers.

Davis announced his retirement from the NFL in 2024. Just a year later, he returned to the University of South Carolina. He finished his degree in the spring of 2025.

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