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LaNorris Sellers is elite and Nyck Harbor isn’t running track, so let’s set South Carolina’s offensive expectations
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I’m setting the bar high. Real high.
South Carolina‘s offense earned that after nearly making the first 12-team College Football Playoff. LaNorris Sellers was one of the top 5 quarterbacks in the sport in the latter half of the year, and that might be a bit conservative. The raw numbers didn’t set the world on fire — finishing No. 47 in FBS in scoring and No. 57 in FBS in yards/play didn’t rewrite the record books — but you couldn’t help but be enticed by the playmaking ability of Sellers alongside a healthy Rocket Sanders.
Sanders is gone, as is offensive coordinator/play-caller Dowell Loggains. Those were both significant pieces to replace. But with Sellers back and 2-time winner of Bruce Feldman’s annual “Freaks List” Nyck Harbor opting for spring football instead of track, the question needs to be asked.
How high of a bar should we set for the enticing South Carolina offense in 2025?
The best offense in program history should be in play because with all due respect to Spencer Rattler, Connor Shaw and Stephen Garcia, South Carolina has never returned 1 of the 5 best quarterbacks in the sport. Sellers is that dude, which is why he’s 8th in FanDuel’s preseason Heisman Trophy odds at +1,800.
Here are the 5 best scoring offenses in South Carolina program history:
- 1995 — 36.5 PPG
- 2013 — 34.1 PPG
- 2014 — 32.6 PPG
- 2022 — 32.2 PPG
- 1973 — 31.5 PPG
Thirty years removed from that top-10 offense in FBS in 1995 — go figure that it yielded a 4-6-1 record because the Gamecocks were defensive doormats in Year 4 in the SEC — Sellers can one-up that group. In the last 6 regular-season games, South Carolina averaged 35.7 points. Granted, if you take away non-offensive scoring, that average was 33.3 points per game. Still, though. You get it. That group was dominant down the stretch and the fact that 5 of those 6 games were against scoring defenses that finished in the top 50 bodes well for 2025.
The Gamecocks rank No. 40 in percentage of returning offensive production. As unstoppable as a healthy Sanders felt at times — nobody was keeping him from the end zone on that game-winning play against Mizzou — there shouldn’t be an expected dip at tailback. Shane Beamer added 1,100-yard rusher Rahsul Faison from Utah State. Faison ranked No. 8 in FBS with 69 missed tackles forced (min. 100 carries) and he averaged 3.86 yards after first contact. That’s promising. South Carolina might only have 2 full-time starters back on the offensive line, but as Beamer reminded the media, there’s very much a lot of ongoing competition within that group, which included several transfers.
As much as hitting on the portal additions will impact the South Carolina offense, the ceiling will depend on Sellers’ development under new offensive coordinator Mike Shula. Loggains might not have been considered an elite play-caller, but the improvement of Sellers’ footwork and ability to extend plays while keeping his eyes downfield was obvious. That quarterback development under Loggains was evident during Rattler’s second season in Columbia, too.
At this stage of Sellers’ career, he’d probably rather have an elite schemer than someone who’s an elite developer of quarterback fundamentals. We don’t know which camp Shula will fall into after spending a year at South Carolina as an analyst. But there should at least be some continuity there. Sellers won’t be tasked with learning a new offense, which is why he’s got All-American potential.
Speaking of potential, Harbor continues to be a fascinating weapon to discuss. Again, this is his first time not using his world-class speed for the track team in the spring. Harbor is focused on football coming off the best stretch of his young, but well-documented career. This was the play that sparked it:
In Harbor’s final 7 games, he averaged 46 receiving yards and he totaled 3 receiving touchdowns. Before that Alabama game, Harbor had 4 catches of 20 yards during roughly 1.5 seasons of college ball. In those last 7 games, he had 6 such grabs. The improved route-running was evident. Harbor’s biggest hurdle as a college receiver has been getting teams to respect that instead of just respecting his top-end speed. He only saw 10 downfield targets last year (37 SEC wide receivers saw at least 11 targets of 20 yards), but nobody else on South Carolina’s roster had more than 6 such targets.
If there was a knock on South Carolina’s offense during its ascent in 2024, it was that there was too much pressure on Sellers to make spectacular plays once the scheme broke down. Only 13% of Sellers’ attempts were 20 yards downfield, which wasn’t even top 100 in FBS. That didn’t line up with a 56.3% adjusted completion percentage on those throws, which was No. 2 in FBS (min. 20 attempts of 20 yards). The Gamecocks having a true deep threat would change that. A true deep threat means having a guy who averages at least 1 20-yard catch per game. If Harbor can become that while still taking advantage of secondaries that give him too much space, that’s when we’ll see the South Carolina passing game fully unlocked.
South Carolina didn’t add any receivers in the portal (yet), but there’s hope that even if a splashy addition doesn’t come in the post-spring window, a full-time Harbor, 5th-year receiver Jared Brown and Mazeo Bennett out of the slot will provide the continuity that Sellers needs to be the top-5 QB version of himself that we saw down the stretch.
This offense should expect to average 6.5 yards per play and 35 points per game, both of which would’ve been top-20 marks in FBS in 2024. Barring an injury to Sellers, it’d be disappointing to come up short of that. That could be needed if regression is coming for a South Carolina defense that had 8 defensive players invited to the NFL Combine this year. There could be more shootouts on hand for the Gamecocks, and whether they’ll take that in stride remains to be seen.
All we know is that we’re well past the days of wondering if some 4-star, Will Muschamp-recruited quarterback would pop. Sellers should’ve become South Carolina’s first All-SEC quarterback ever in 2024, but for whatever reason, Quinn Ewers got that nod. Perhaps that’ll fuel some offseason motivation. Whatever the case, there are more than enough pieces in place for a historically prolific offensive season in Columbia.
Feel free to set that bar nice and high.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
