Carolina Confidential
Carolina Confidential – presented by Herring Insurance Services – is your home for South Carolina football and recruiting insight from Gamecock Central’s Wes Mitchell.
— Travian Robertson spent his first official day in the office Tuesday going over South Carolina’s recruiting board at defensive tackle with the recruiting staff.
There will always be some differences of opinion between different coaches, so we’ll be tracking if the board shifts much at all in the coming days and weeks but most of the guys Carolina is in on have the type of talent and traits that any coach is going to like, so I don’t suspect it will change much off the bat.
Certainly, for 2025 you can guarantee that top in-state prospect four-star DL Amare Adams and Savannah five-star DL Elijah Griffin will be early priority targets for South Carolina — and I expect the Gamecocks to make a big push to get those guys on campus in the near future to meet Robertson in person.
Robertson was up bright and early on Wednesday morning hitting Atlanta area schools and I understand one of his stops was at Pace Academy. He was walso expected to stop in on Fairburn (Ga.) Creekside three-star DL Michai Boireau.
— The spring transfer portal window officially closed on Sunday.
While you’ve seen some names from other programs continue to trickle into the portal after (the school has 48 hours to enter the player after the player makes the request), for the most part, the players who are going to enter the portal are in there — both in terms of South Carolina’s roster and the available players they could add.
The one caveat is that graduates can enter the transfer portal at any time and don’t have to adhere to the various portal windows.
There were a couple of other specific non-graduate South Carolina players we were tracking as potential entries leading up to the deadline, but for now, it appears they’ll stay in Columbia.
— It should come as no surprise which positions South Carolina appears to be focused on in the portal.
Running back and EDGE are the two obvious ones but we’ve seen the Gamecocks involved with offensive linemen, linebackers, defensive tackles, defensive backs, and wide receivers as well. If a player can potentially help, they’ll look into him but they’re not going to take a guy just to take him.
I remain pretty confident that they’ll be able to find the talent they want at running back and EDGE. Finding impact offensive tackles in the portal can be a bit more difficult.
— While it’s certainly not a comprehensive list at this point, there are a handful of guys we are focused on in the portal in terms of confirmed mutual interest.
We’ve mentioned this name previously and can confirm now that South Carolina has been in contact with N.C. State transfer portal running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye and there is mutual interest here.
The 6-foot, 205-pounder is a smooth runner with good vision and size. I’m a fan of his game and really it’s injuries that have kept him from being an every-down back for State to this point in his career.
The rising junior rushed for 305 yards and three touchdowns on 55 carries last season along with 12 catches for 148 yards and a TD.
While injuries hampered the potential for a huge 2022 season — he missed four games as well as the majority of two additional contests — he showed flashes of being a big-time back.
His biggest game came against Texas Tech when he rushed 14 times for 54 yards and a score and caught 4 passes for 93 yards and another touchdown.
— As we’ve mentioned before, South Carolina would love to make a run at Notre Dame transfer portal running back Logan Diggs.
I’d put it like this: there’s enough mutual interest there for us to be tracking it but probably not enough yet for Carolina fans to get their hopes up yet.
Diggs is a Louisana native who was recruited to ND by Brian Kelly. LSU sources fully expect him to end up there.
But the Gamecocks will take a swing here and see what happens. I have reason to believe Diggs is at least willing to listen, and South Carolina has a much better story at running back than the Tigers.
— If LSU is the heavy home-state favorite to bring Diggs back, then I’d paint Carolina in a similar spot with Palmetto State native and Syracuse transfer portal EDGE Jatius Geer.
The 6-foot-6, 233-pounder emerged as a big-time pass-rusher for Syracuse as a redshirt freshman this past season, playing in all 13 games with 12 starts.
Geer finished the year with 33 tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, six quarterback hurries, a forced fumble and a blocked kick.
— South Carolina offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains has not offered any 2025 quarterbacks since taking over at his new position but he’ll be evaluating several during the current spring eval period and I’d expect some of the first offers to go out then.
Some 2025 quarterbacks we’re tracking: Lucedale (Miss.) George County Deuce Knight, Findlay (Ohio) Ryan Montgomery, Alpharetta (Ga.) Milton Luke Nickel, Pahokee (Fla.) Austin Simmons (shoutout Pahokee… who remembers Nu’Keese Richardson’s recruitment back in the day?!), Saraland (Ala.) K.J. Lacey and Columbia (S.C.) RNE Will Wilson.
A 2026 quarterback we’ve got our eyes on is Alpharetta (Ga.) quarterback DJ Bordeaux.
— South Carolina offensive line coach Lonnie Teasley was at Dillon High on Monday to check in on four-star OL Josiah Thompson. Also by the school was Alabama assistant Kevin Steele. Thompson is locked in with the Gamecocks but Alabama hasn’t stopped trying at this point, which speaks to Thompson as a player.
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