Shane Beamer Football Camp Insider: Day 4 (Part 2)

Moments after South Carolina completed its second 7-on-7 tournament of the summer Friday afternoon, Gamecock recruiting staffers quickly started shuffling chairs and tables.

For the first time in the Shane Beamer era, the Gamecocks also hosted a night camp Friday evening on the heels of their full day of OL vs. DL work and the 7-on-7 camp.

As for those, Chris Clark had plenty of news, notes, and scoop from the early part of the day, which you can read in his Shane Beamer Football Camp Insider — this should just serve as a quick addition to that with some notes from the evening workout.

South Carolina is also hosting a couple of camps on Saturday, which we have notes from here.

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— It never fails that this time of year, at least one prospect, usually from the Palmetto State, will pop up out of nowhere and land on the Gamecocks’ radar.

This year, that prospect is Calhoun Falls wide receiver/defensive back Marri Norman, who at this point doesn’t even have a profile (that will change soon).

The 6-foot-2, 189-pounder plays pretty much every sport — football, baseball, basketball, and track — for the Blue Flashes, winning the 1A state championship in the triple jump and long jump each of the last two years while adding gold for the high jump this past season.

Norman, who has been deep under the radar, partially due to some injuries in football and partially due to the fact that he hasn’t done camps and the Blue Flashes (now under a newer coaching staff) have struggled on the field in terms of wins and losses.

Want some comparisons, Norman is officially into the Kylic Horton or Darius Rush conversation in terms of where he is right now as a player and athlete and where his recruitment is too for that matter.

While he’s not been known to pretty much anyone else, the South Carolina staff was aware of him before today as Justin Stepp quickly greeted him as he entered the indoor facility with some coaches and Normal received plenty of attention throughout the day from both Stepp and defensive backs coach Torrian Gray.

As of right now, the Gamecocks have Norman on the board as a defensive back but he worked out at both DB and WR after running a 4.5 40-yard-dash.

Norman is a long, rangy, long-striding plus athlete who is, as you would expect, raw at this time. But he tracks the ball pretty well, appears to have big hands, and showed great closing speed. As one person told us, he has no idea how good he can be.

He’s officially on the radar.

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— Friday also offered us an opportunity to get an in-person look at Kennesaw (Ga.) Kell class of 2024 three-star ATH Kemari Nix.

It’s always interesting tracking Torrian Gray’s board because it’s usually some mix of big-time prospects who the Gamecocks are battling blue bloods for and under-the-radar prospects that Gray has found.

He’s obviously done well with both in terms of then developing them in college.

Nix is more of the latter but has had a South Carolina offer from Gray since March, so he’s been on the radar for a little bit now.

I don’t believe Nix ran the 40, but he showed strong coverage skills and closing speed while playing nickelback in the 1-on-1 session, receiving plenty of attention from Gray.

— One camper we were really looking forward to getting a look at was Taylors (S.C.) Greer class of 2024 three-star DL Marcus Downs.

Downs made it to campus and dressed out to work out for the camp but was spotted with ice on his knee and wasn’t able to do much in terms of the actual camp.

We’re not sure what the next step is here but there’s clearly some level of mutual interest so we will keep an eye on him moving forward and see where it goes.

— Lexington (S.C.) River Bluff class of 2025 wide receiver Stephen Collier is an interesting prospect with early offers from Charlotte and Coastal. The 6-foot-2, 222-pounder is listed as a receiver now but could ultimate grow into more of an h-back at that size. He also runs in the 4.6s so he can move well for someone his size. He’s definitely one to keep an eye on in terms of local guys.

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