Freshmen Class Receives High Praise From Dakereon Joyner

South Carolina's highly-touted 2023 class is expected to make an immediate impact this Fall, and one team leader thinks they're more than capable.

Throughout the offseason, South Carolina's head football coach Shane Beamer has maintained his stance on multiple facets of his team when it comes to on-field play, with two of the most repeated themes including turnovers needing to be cut down and rush defense needing to improve. Another thing that the third-year headman in Columbia has brought up countless times is the idea that multiple freshmen from the Gamecocks' best recruiting class in over a decade will have to contribute immediately, a message that he reiterated at South Carolina's Media Day event this past Thursday.

A good chunk of this class arrived as early enrollees, a group that included players like Grayson "Pup" Howard, Jalon Kilgore, Desmond Umeozulu, Markee Anderson, and others. The rest of the bunch, guys like Nyckoles Harbor, Dontavious Braswell, and Oluwatosin "Big Tree" Babalade, arrived in June for summer workouts. Despite the slight variance in arrival time amongst the class, there's a real feeling in the building that these freshmen could help out the team right from the jump, and one of the noted team leaders for South Carolina, running back Dakereon Joyner, echoed those sentiments when asked which freshmen stood out so far in Fall camp.

"All of them. Of course Nyck [Harbor], all the freshmen DBs, Pup Howard, you got some o-linemen, really every freshman that I can think of is really gonna give us a chance to win this year," Joyner stated. "They're gonna be put in positions to play, so I think those guys kinda understand that, and they're taking that [message] well, trying to take in coaching. I think all of them are developing well."

I think it says a lot to hear these words coming from Joyner, someone who's been around the block countless times in his unique college career and, thus, has seen many freshmen come in after him and go through the rigors of an SEC offseason program in preparing for their first year of college ball. It indicates that what Shane Beamer and other coaches have said about this class isn't just a bunch of coach speak, that this group is truly different compared to some of the freshmen classes that have come through Columbia over the past several years. At the very least, the 2023 class could decide what the floor is for the Gamecocks regarding their win-loss record this Fall.

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