O'Mega Blake's Breakout Performance Could Propel Him To Future Success
Two catches, seven receiving yards, and one receiving touchdown. That was the career stat line for South Carolina wide receiver O'Mega Blake entering last week. In fairness to Blake, not every college football player bursts onto the scene in their first game, freshman season, or even sophomore season.
For Blake, however, expectations were heightened coming into the season for several reasons. One, he was entering his third season of college football, a year that's associated with the idea of manifested potential, i.e., a player or coach showing their team that they're ready to make their mark. Two, O'Mega was a player who received a good deal of praise from several other offensive players in Fall camp, including star quarterback Spencer Rattler.
After the first two weeks of the season, Blake had yet to make a considerable impact for multiple reasons, but that all changed last weekend against the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs. Just one offensive possession into the game, Antwane "Juice" Wells left the game with a lower-body injury and wouldn't return, which meant that someone had to come in and pick up the slack that was now in the proverbial rope. That someone wound up being Blake, who caught five passes for 86 receiving yards, leading the term in the latter and putting together by far the most productive outing of his career.
With Juice likely on the mend for a good while, the next challenge for Blake will be to string together performances like we saw in Athens, but the one thing that gets overlooked far too often when it comes to individual athletic performances is the power of confidence. In essence, once you prove to yourself you can accomplish a specific goal or task, it becomes much easier to repeat.
O'Mega has a teammate he could use as motivation in figuring out how to use his recent performance to propel himself forward, that teammate being Xavier Legette. Legette came into the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl last December with 345 career receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns attached résumé, but blew up against Notre Dame, recording seven catches for 78 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns. Now, Xavier is viewed as a bonafide No. 1 SEC wide receiver and could potentially be a Day 1 or 2 draft pick this next April.
With a potential mentor in front him and now tangible proof of the work he's put in, Blake could be the next breakout Gamecock performer as the 2023 season progresses.
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