Xavier Legette's impact being felt all over field
After each game, Shane Beamer meets with his coaching staff to pick their South Carolina players of the week. It’s broken down into three groups: offense, defense and special teams.
It’s usually rare for a player to win more than one award per game. That was until Xavier Legette broke that tradition. He was one of the offensive players of the week and also took home not one but two special teams awards.
“I don’t know if that’s ever happened in my time here at Carolina where one person won two of the special teams player of the game awards,” Beamer said.
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So far this year, Legette has been a do-it-all guy for the Gamecocks. He’s been all over the field playing wide receiver and special teams.
“He’s our kickoff returner and is making good decisions and doing a good job in the return game. That’s what he does. So that’s one aspect of it,” Beamer said. “And then, he’s our gunner on the punt team, as well. Those were two critical positions last year for us. That was Jalen Brooks and Darius Rush, and both of those guys are on NFL rosters right now. So it was a big question mark for us who are going to be those gunners on our punt team, and (Xavier) has done an awesome job.”
In Saturday’s win over Furman, Legette had a kickoff return for 24 yards. But what impressed Beamer more was his play as a gunner on for South Carolina special teams.
“The first punt, if I’m not mistaken, he does a great job getting downfield in coverage and then fronts up the returner where he has nowhere to go,” Beamer said. “There’s another punt where he’s down there in front of the returner’s face and makes the returner run sideways, where we’re able to get over there and make the tackle over on Furman’s sideline. And then, he also gets down there and downs a punt on about the one-inch line last night, as well.”
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But his best play has come as a receiver, a position he didn’t see a whole lot of targets at in the past. That has rapidly changed this year.
Legette caught six passes for 118 yards and a touchdown. He averaged 19.7 yards per catch, with two catches going for more than 40 yards. He’s now up to 296 receiving yards, the most by a Gamecocks receiver through the first two games of the season since 2000.
“The guy works his tail off and there’s no secret. It’s showing, I mean, he’s the special teams player of the game, he’s the offensive player of the game, and just doing so many good things,” Beamer said.
For Legette, putting up these numbers isn’t much of a surprise. He spoke all spring and summer about the work he put in and it’s showing on the field.
“I have a whole lot of confidence, man. I’ve put the time in for a while like I’ve been telling y’all. So I knew it was going to happen,” Legette said.
