Shane Beamer Discusses Nyckoles Harbor Sweepstakes

The head coach of South Carolina's Football program met with the media on National Signing Day and discussed how Nyckoles Harbor's recruitment unfolded.

Nyckoles Harbor's commitment to the South Carolina Gamecocks brings what's been a rollercoaster of a recruitment over the past few months to a close. It makes him the highest-rated signee of the Shane Beamer era. While the head man in Columbia is thrilled about landing one of the best high school athletes the nation has, he might be just as happy that this recruitment is over.

"The last 24 hours, really the last 12 have taken years off my life I think to be honest with you," Beamer stated. "We were in a battle, and next door up in the team meeting room, we have our core values up there, and compete is one of them, and we competed our butts off with this one. Emotion wise I felt good about Nyck all along, I really did... Went to bed last night feeling good, I got an audio message from him at 2:57 am today that wasn’t good and obviously [I] didn’t sleep after that, trying to figure out what’s going on and whatnot... The emotions for me were certainly a whirlwind today, back and forth, good and bad, but to see him put that hat on was, I’ll be honest with you, a pretty emotional moment for me.”

In terms of why Harbor picked South Carolina in the end, Shane Beamer believes that the bonds everyone in the program cultivated with Nyckoles made a huge difference.

"The relationships that he built with our team, our players, our coaches, our staff. It’s a really good group of incoming freshmen that we’re bringing in and those guys really bonded this Summer when they were here on recruiting visits and bonded this Fall when Nyck was here on his official visit and they kept in touch.”

Looking at what position Harbor will play on the gridiron in Columbia, he'll play more at the wide receiver position where the coaching staff can best utilize his skillset.

"It [would be] more of that wide receiver world. Not that he wouldn’t be doing some tight end type things, but he’s an elite athlete and he doesn’t need to have his hand in the ground blocking defensive ends 50 percent of the time… we see him more in space on the perimeter, more in a receiver type role."

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