Gamecocks Pull Off Stunning Commitment of 5-star ATH
Wow. What an incredible 24 hours. After putting in a futurecast for South Carolina to land Nyckoles Harbor all the way back in August, I flipped my prediction to Oregon this morning due to intel from within the program, and from national analysts. Then I flipped it back to South Carolina just minutes before Harbor's announcement due to changing intel from some of the same people. That back-and-forth paints a pretty accurate story of one of the more intriguing recruiting battles in South Carolina history. I felt the Gamecocks led through a lot of the process here, hence the August futurecast, but several other schools made solid pushes, including Oregon in the 11th hour, with all sorts of bells and whistles that might appeal to the 2-sport ATH with Olympic dreams. Our morning intel made it seem like perhaps the Ducks' late push was enough to sway Harbor to the west coast.
It would seem Harbor and his family had one last surprise up their sleeve when Harbor chose the Gamecocks during his announcement on ESPN. My sources went back and forth several times in the last 24 hours on what would happen here, and it's really impressive how well the Harbors kept things under wraps. Regardless of how we got here, it's impossible to understate how huge this commitment is for South Carolina, and the on-the-field production is only a part of that. This commitment puts the Gamecocks on the map after winning a national-level recruiting battle, including beating out home team Maryland, blueblood Michigan, and Nike stronghold Oregon.
Ultimately this one seemed to come down to the long-term relationships that Shane Beamer, who was one of the first to offer Harbor while still an assistant at Oklahoma, and his staff built with Harbor and his family. There is also some credit due to the folks who created a competitive NIL package for the Gamecocks, which perhaps didn't have the ceiling that an Oregon offer might have, but certainly must have been competitive enough to let the other factors win the day.
Those other factors seemed to center around the relationships, as we mentioned, and also the relative proximity of South Carolina compared to the cross-country trip to Eugene, Oregon. For someone who seems close-knit with his family, a trip to Columbia in the same time zone certainly sounds a lot more feasible for in-season game days.
This commitment continues to solidify the inroads that South Carolina has made in the DMV area of the mid-Atlantic, with Harbor becoming the 4th recruit in the class from that region, and obviously the largest in name recognition.
Harbor chose South Carolina over 70+ offers from nearly every major program in the country and is a testament to the strong recruiting strategy that Beamer and his staff have employed since he arrived, which is starting to pay dividends in a major way. Those strategies will continue to pay off the longer that Beamer and his staff have to build those relationships, and we are already seeing their approach pay off elsewhere in the country, with an incredibly strong start to the 2024 class that has them sitting at #8 in the early team rankings, with only 4 commits thus far.
For Harbor, it's unclear yet what his future will hold on the gridiron, and we know he'll be splitting time preparing for the 2024 Olympics in track, but for the college football universe, this is a shot across the bow showing that the Gamecocks upward trajectory isn't just limited to a couple of top-10 wins to end the 2022 regular season.
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