OPINION: James Coley To Give Shot In Arm In WR Recruiting For Gamecocks

South Carolina's football program has struggled recruiting blue-chip wideouts during the Shane Beamer era. New WR coach James Coley has a chance to change that.

On Friday afternoon, the University of South Carolina's Board of Trustees made a long-expected move official: James Coley was signed on as the South Carolina Gamecocks' new wide receivers coach. With any new coach that joins a staff, the fanbase will have one primary question: What will this new hire bring to the table?

Take a look at Coley's extensive coaching résumé, and it's clear that there's one area where the Florida native excels better than most: recruiting. This will be a welcome sight for South Carolina fans who have witnessed the football program, due to a confluence of reasons, only reel in one four-star prospect in the past three recruiting cycles, that being 2024 signee Mazeo Bennett.

In his sixteen years as an on-field assistant at the college level, James Coley has landed 4 five-stars and 28 four-stars when he's the primary recruiter, according to his 247Sports coaching profile. That's an average of 1 five-star signed every four cycles and 1.75 four-stars signed annually. Oh, and this is coming from a guy who was raised in Miami and has extensive ties to the Sunshine State, one of the deepest states in terms of high school football talent in America.

There were a plethora of issues this past season on the offensive side of the ball, and one of them was the obvious lack of consistent play-making ability that existed behind Xavier Legette. With Legette now gone and consecutive cycles filled with recruiting misses leading to a heavy reliance on the transfer portal in this cycle, this offseason had the feeling of one where something had to give. There's no doubt, based on his career accolades, that James Coley is going to give the Gamecocks some much-needed juice in terms of recruiting the wide receiver position.

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