The positions South Carolina is still focused on in the transfer portal

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer said Wednesday he and his staff are on a “non-stop quest to make this team better” and so, while part of the day was spent recognizing the incoming class of high school signees, there was also still plenty of business to attend.

The Gamecocks already have eight incoming signees from the transfer portal for this class but part of Wednesday was spent recruiting other portal prospects and evaluating potential future targets.

As Beamer made clear: the Gamecocks are far from finished adding to their 2024 roster.

“I think you’re always looking (at) can you better your team at every single position?” Beamer said. “That’s my job as the head coach—to constantly increase the competition, the depth, and the talent level at every single position. You never say never, but if you look at your ideal numbers of where you want to be at each position, we’re at the number or over the number at running back, we’re at the number or over the number at tight end, and we’re at the number or over the number at linebacker. So to answer your question, probably every position except those three positions.”

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At face value, that means the Gamecocks could potentially add more players at quarterback, wide receiver, offensive line, defensive line, and in the secondary.

The Gamecocks have already added Pitt transfer defensive lineman Deandre Jules and Georgia Tech EDGE Kyle Kennard, so they’ve heavily increased the depth there.

Beamer also acknowledged there’s always a chance there’s a player who is simply too good to turn down, regardless of position.

But there are a handful of spots that remain top priorities to fill, mostly on the offensive side of the ball.

“At receiver, we need more depth there,” he said. “We want to rotate multiple guys a game. So we need to, like I said, the guys in our program to continue to come along. And that’s a position that we wouldn’t turn away a great one that was out there.”

Carolina has Coastal Carolina transfer Jared Brown committed but will look to add a few more instant impact players there.

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At quarterback, the Gamecocks were a major factor with Vanderbilt transfer AJ Swann but he ultimately chose LSU after briefly silently committing to the staff, so Carolina remains active in that market.

“Right now, if Luke (Doty’s) going to be working as a receiver primarily but still also dabbling in at quarterback, but if you say that Luke’s focusing on receiver in a lot of ways, you go into spring practice with two scholarship quarterbacks, LaNorris (Sellers) and Dante (Reno),” Beamer said. “We need to get some depth in that room and some competition in that room. LaNorris knows that. And Dante knows that without a doubt.”

Finally, South Carolina would like to tack on at offensive line and defensive back.

“Offensive line — we’re in a really good position, but as we saw this year, you can never have enough there as well,” Beamer said. “And then in the secondary, we lose Marcellas Dial, and we got some good core group of guys returning, but just from a depth standpoint, we’d like to get some more bodies in that room because that’s where a lot of your special teams players come from also.”

An NCAA recruiting dead period that runs through January 2 may slightly slow the transfer portal activity but the Gamecocks, even during the holidays, will remain incredibly active in recruiting portal prospects to put themselves in position to host targets in early January and ultimately add to the roster.

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