The Time Is Now: Fall Camp Preview

The ramp-up to week one will officially begin on Friday for South Carolina’s football team.

Players will report to campus on Thursday, with the first practice of fall camp scheduled for Friday morning. South Carolina will have 21 practices scattered over the next month before the season opener against Georgia State on Sep. 3 in addition to two scrimmages at Williams-Brice Stadium.

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Positive momentum has been the theme for South Carolina all offseason. The team is coming off of a successful 7-6 year one under head coach Shane Beamer and has already started translating the success on the field into success on the recruiting trail. Now comes the different and even tougher challenge of going from a surprising success to a sustained success, and Beamer knows that part of the equation is the trickiest hurdle.

“We made great strides last season going from two wins to seven wins,” he said at SEC Media days. “A challenge for us is making sure our guys understand that going from seven to the next step, the next level, is going to take even more work. Everything that I've seen from our guys since they came back shows me that they understand that.”

As far as storylines go for fall camp, most of the attention will be on the incoming transfers. It is a roster mostly full of experienced players, including five returners on the offensive line, but not completely the same as 2021.

Of course, Oklahoma transfer Spencer Rattler has dominated the headlines since the day he announced his move last December, but his fellow transfers will be looking to make an early impression in camp as well.

Running back Christian Beal-Smith is in from Wake Forest after rushing for 604 yards and seven touchdowns with the Demon Deacons last season. Elsewhere in the skill position group is a pair of wide receivers coming in from Sun Belt schools. Corey Rucker set the single-game record for receiving yards by a freshman with a 310-yard outburst against Louisiana-Monroe in his freshman season at Arkansas State and followed that up with a stellar 2021 season in Jonesboro before transferring.

Antwane Wells Jr. exploded for 1,250 yards and 15 receiving touchdowns at James Madison, including four scores in three FCS playoff games before the Dukes moved up to the FBS level over the offseason. Oklahoma’s Austin Stogner completes the trio of transfers in the pass-catching corps, reuniting with his old teammate Rattler.

North Carolina State transfer Terell Dawkins will join a talented group of edge rushers after three seasons in Raleigh, and the secondary gets a boost with Central Michigan’s Devonni Reed. The former MAC star had two interceptions and a fumble recovery last season, including an interception in Central Michigan’s trip to LSU.

“Last year I stood up here and there wasn't a single person in here that was talking about South Carolina football other than maybe our beat writers,” Beamer said. “No one was talking about any of the individuals in our football team across the country last year. That's different this year. People are talking about us nationally, which is what we want. We have high expectations at South Carolina. People are talking about our players as individuals more nationally than what they were last year. There's more buzz about this program right now.”

There will be a different tone to camp this season. Whereas the first year with a new regime is always about establishing the culture and identity of a program while installing schemes, those foundational blocks are already in place for the second time around.

“At the end of the day, it's all about the people that we have in our program,” Beamer said as he concluded his opening statement at SEC Media Days. “We got some special, special, special people in our program, players, coaches and staff. So grateful and blessed to be the head football coach here at South Carolina. We are just getting started with what we're doing.”

The momentum is there, the buzz is there and the optimism is certainly there. The climb to make it all come to fruition starts Friday.