Quick Slants with Uva: Nyck Harbor will be fine

With Nyck Harbor headed off to Nationals next week, and earning a spot to compete at the US Olympic Trials in late June, there’s been a lot of talk about him on both TIF and on social media. This is my two cents on it.

For the ones complaining about Harbor running track while football season is around the corner, what’s different now than how things were expected to play out for him? This is playing out exactly the way it was expected when the Gamecocks recruited and landed the five-star ATH.

[Get the On3 app! Stay connected with GC!]

I spoke to a South Carolina football coach just last weekend and he reiterated that it’s going exactly as planned. If anything, it’s probably going a little better since Harbor invested more time into football this past spring than what most dual-sport athletes who play a spring sport do.

Harbor knows he has a long ways to go in order to improve as a wide receiver. But let’s stop with this narrative that he hasn’t been doing anything to get ready for the upcoming football season. Shoot, there’s plenty of players throughout the country who couldn’t even practice this spring because they’re nursing injuries. At least Harbor has been moving around and has been staying in great shape.

On top of that, he was in the football ops building a lot this spring for meetings, at practices to take mental reps, and would even workout with LaNorris Sellers and the other quarterbacks sometimes twice a week to catch passes. He’s been in constant communication with several football coaches, including newly hired wide receiver coach Mike Furrey. A guy who knows a thing or two about teaching the position since he spent a handful of years playing it in the NFL.

[Get news from GamecockCentral via email]

The US Olympic Trials will take place in Oregon from June 21 to 30. While it’s possible that even if Harbor doesn’t make the initial Olympic team, he could still earn a spot as an alternate. If that is the case, then it would likely eat into the start of fall camp. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is set to begin on July 26 and run through August 11. South Carolina football is tentatively scheduled to report for fall camp on August 1. Practice No.1 is set to begin on August 2.

The same people complaining now about this are probably the same ones who were pounding their chest when he committed to South Carolina a year ago. If the alternative is Harbor not being a Gamecock, what would you pick?

Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!

The post Quick Slants with Uva: Nyck Harbor will be fine appeared first on On3.