Shane Beamer Hints At Likely Starters, Discusses Ongoing Position Battles
The Gamecocks return several key players from last season that will be heavily relied on again in 2023. At the same time, however, Shane Beamer and his staff are looking for backups at key positions who can help this Fall and provide a positive future outlook for the program.
Earlier today, Shane Beamer hinted at some of the players who would be in the starting lineup for South Carolina's week one nationally-televised game against North Carolina, and a lot of the names he mentioned are players that almost everyone is familiar with.
"Jordan Strachan, Boogie Huntley, Spencer Rattler, Dakereon Joyner, Vershon Lee, [and] Jakai Moore should be starters for us," Beamer said.
The most intriguing name that was thrown out in this group was Jakai Moore, who has been bouncing around on the o-line in Fall camp both in terms of the position he's repping at along with which offensive unit he's running with. Moore being named as a starter would indicate that offensive tackle might be decided to a certain extent, but Shane wasn't willing to go far with that position and multiple others on the offensive side of the ball.
"The offensive tackle position without giving names is certainly a position battle going on, not just for the starters at each position, but who are the top two backups gonna be?" "How does that running back position shake out? Dakereon [Joyner's] gonna be listed as the starter on the first depth chart, and rightfully so, but what does two, three, and four look like? Who are the top backups at defensive tackle? And who's our third and fourth [outside] corner?"
Specifically at the receiver position, Beamer conveyed a bit of disappointment regarding the constant shuffling still taking place with the backups saying that "there's no question if Juice is healthy, Juice and Ahmarean Brown, and Xavier Legette are our top three receivers, and who is four, five, six and seven [is] still to be determined."
Some wideouts that have repped with second-string offense in Fall camp are O'Mega Blake, Payton Mangrum, Eddie Lewis, and Joseph Morris. Not counting the injured Nyckoles Harbor into the equation, those seem to be the receivers battling to make it into the rotation of six wideouts.
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