LaNorris Sellers should be celebrated for choosing South Carolina again
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On Dec. 13, USC posted on its social media pages that running back Waymond Jordan had re-signed with the team for the upcoming season. The football account sent out a graphic alongside an image of Jordan signing paperwork tying him to the Trojans for another year.
Take a stroll through the quotes of that post. It’s filled with college football fans complaining about the current state of the sport. “Maybe I’m too woke,” wrote one user, “but I don’t ever want to see contract extension posts from schools.”
The average fan bemoans the fluidity with which modern college football rosters change each offseason. The sport is worse for it. In your father’s college football, players stayed with one team for 3 or 4 years, working toward a common goal.
On Dec. 13, on the opposite side of the country, the other USC got news that a key piece of its backfield had also decided to remain in town for another year.
Earlier that morning, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers was nearing a deal to return to Columbia for his junior season in 2026.
Take a stroll through the quotes of that post. You’ll find folks with large platforms telling Sellers to “fire your agent,” suggesting that his decision “isn’t a good call” for his development, and claiming the decision was “not a smart career move.”
So.
Which is it?
Which sport do we want?
Because modern college football denigrates players for bouncing around every year, denigrates players for signing deals to stay with their current team, and denigrates players for showing faith in coaching staffs that may not have done right by them.
Sellers should be celebrated for choosing to remain at South Carolina, choosing to continue representing the school he committed to out of high school, and choosing to give it a go with a third offensive coordinator.
It was too much too soon on the Sellers front during the most recent offseason. The redshirt sophomore was hailed as a first-round NFL Draft pick. Some even suggested he could be the first player taken. South Carolina was a College Football Playoff contender and entered the season ranked 13th in the AP poll.
Neither the Gamecocks nor Sellers ever looked the part.
South Carolina had a difficult time protecting him. That was a massive reason why the team limped to a 4-8 record. Among power conference passers with at least 200 drop-backs this season, only 1 player was pressured at a higher rate than Sellers. And he was worse when pressured in 2025 than he was in 2024.
But Sellers also made little progress as a straight drop-back passer. On non-play action attempts in 2024, he completed 62% of his passes for 7.8 yards per attempt with 7 interceptions and 14 turnover-worthy plays, per PFF. On those same plays in 2025, he completed 57.4% of his passes for 7.3 yards per attempt with 7 interceptions and 12 turnover-worthy plays.
He completed 62.7% of his throws between 10 and 19 yards, which was an uptick from his 2024 performance, but he was less accurate on throws within 9 yards of the line of scrimmage.
He threw 8 picks after tossing 7 a year ago. He finished with a Total QBR of 61.5 — which ranked 13th among 16 qualified SEC quarterbacks — after posting a 69.8 QBR last year.
Head coach Shane Beamer fired his offensive coordinator and brought in Kendal Briles from TCU. South Carolina’s problems on offense in 2025 were not Sellers problems, but Sellers also wasn’t able to act as a band-aid that held everything together. His legs were seldom a factor and the Gamecocks closed with 6 losses in their final 7 games.
It would have been foolish to enter the NFL Draft.
But I love the fact that Sellers didn’t even flirt with the transfer portal.
A new home might have offered him more money.
A new home might have offered him a better offensive line, a better receiver room, or a more consistent rushing attack.
Development, though, is seldom linear. That’s especially true at the quarterback spot. Joe Burrow needed years before, seemingly overnight, he bloomed. Sometimes it clicks right away for a quarterback. Sometimes, it’s a little less clean. But you don’t force a bud to bloom by yanking it out of the soil.
In my father’s college football, the offseason was about fixing deficiencies, not fleeing to a place where they didn’t exist. Sellers, a 6-3, 240-pound fullback with a cannon for an arm, showed us he’s a throwback player in an era that disincentivizes loyalty. That’s worth something even if the potential doesn’t perfectly materialize.
The hype machine won’t turn South Carolina into a trendy CFP pick this offseason. Or, at least, it shouldn’t. But the Gamecocks have every reason to believe they might be 4-2 (or better) when they head into their bye week on Oct. 17, 2026. Given the way the back half of their schedule shakes out next season, they could be fighting to make a bowl game or producing one of the nation’s strongest 7/8-win seasons.
If Sellers leads a resurgence, he’ll be celebrated. And it’ll mean more.
When the season ended, Beamer talked about how 2025 failures would lead to 2026 successes. If he’s going to be right, Sellers has to take steps forward. And Sellers has to be accountable for that growth. It’s not just the coaching staff.
A decision to return suggests he understands that. Or, at the very least, it suggests he wants to give the hometown team more than what he’s given to this point.
Those decisions are rare in today’s game.
For what it’s worth, they also carry weight in NFL front offices.
Don’t fire your agent, LaNorris. Just put your head down and work this offseason. There are still a few of us who can appreciate that kind of commitment.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
