South Carolina is elevating its recruiting profile. Coach Shane Beamer explains how

Shane Beamer slips into a chair just outside the ballrooms at the Hilton Sandestin Resort. He’s about 250 yards from the white sand beaches of the Florida Panhandle, but hasn’t had a chance to dip his toes onto the scorching hot surface yet. Time constraints. Recruiting. Meetings with league coaches. Pressing engagements, to be sure.

But Beamer takes a momentary pause from all of that during his three days at the Southeastern Conference’s spring meetings for a 20-minute chat. He’s not resting on his laurels, per se, but there’s plenty to be excited about heading into Year 3 in Columbia.

Toward the top of that list is the elite 2024 recruiting class South Carolina is quietly piecing together.

“I think what you’re seeing right now with guys that are committed to us are, that we’re far along with is a direct result of all the effort that we’ve put into it over the last two-and-a-half years since I’ve been the football coach,” Beamer told The State. “Certainly it’s a long way to go to signing day, but I’m excited about the group that we have committed right now, and we’ve just got to continue to add to it.”

Beamer stays away from the general cliches college football coaches tend to spew on the recruiting front. You know, the ones about how recruiting rankings don’t matter, or that “star rankings” are overrated. He acknowledges there’s an uptick in the kind of prospect the Gamecocks can get to commit. You can see it in a brief scan of your recruiting service of choice.

The Gamecocks already have nine commitments in the class of 2024. Eight of those prospects are ranked as four stars in the 247Sports Composite. Four are also slotted inside the top 140. (The Gamecocks signed just one such commitment during the 2022 and 2023 cycles combined — 2024 five-star athlete Nyckoles Harbor).

South Carolina’s class currently sits at No. 11 nationally in 247Sports’ team rankings. Assuming things largely hold, this may well be the program’s highest-ranked class in the modern recruiting era.

How’s it happening? Let Beamer explain.

“I think it’s something that you go back all the way to the first month I was hired as the head coach of South Carolina,” Beamer said. “Getting on guys as quickly as possible and knowing, OK, I got hired in December 2020. That class of 2021 and even that class of 2022, we were way behind on them. But we were immediately able to get to work on the class of 2023 — and you saw that we with what we just signed. We were immediately able to get to work on the class of 2024.”

That South Carolina has been able to push its recruiting efforts to new heights is layered. Winning, no question, helps.

USC burst into the late-season national college football consciousness with its romp of then-No. 5 Tennessee in November. Spencer Rattler’s 438-yard, six-touchdown performance that evening will be remembered in Columbia long after his playing days are over. The ensuing field storm, too, won’t soon be forgotten.

Throw in a win over No. 8 Clemson the following week — the first time the Gamecocks won the annual matchup since 2013 — and there’s a mound of an excitement for Beamer and his staff to use as a pitch.

That’s shown on the recruiting trail.

South Carolina currently has pledges from five of the top seven players in the state. Offensive tackles Kam Pringle (No. 44 in the 247Sports Composite) and Josiah Thompson (No. 71 in the 247Sports Composite) headline the group. That’s not to mention Greenville offensive lineman Blake Franks, who the Gamecocks beat the Tigers for straight-up.

“The success we had the last two weeks of the regular season, that resonated with a lot of kids than being able to sign the recruiting class that we had,” Beamer said. “... Great players want to play with great players. So when when you’re able to have a signing class like you have and to have a group of kids committed like we have right now, that’s appealing to prospects — to be able to come in and compete with other great players day in and day out and be around other great players.”

It’s far too early to truly handicap what this South Carolina class will be come the early signing period in December, but the building blocks are there.

The Gamecocks have signed nine four-star prospects just twice since 2012 and are well on their way to surpassing that total during this cycle. South Carolina, too, remains in on a handful of top-level prospects in the 2024 class that feels like a direct correlation to landing Harbor during the 2023 process. USC is, for example, firmly in the mix with Dylan Stewart (No. 10 in the 247Sports Composite), among others from the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area.

“Nyck’s profile really helps,” Rivals national recruiting analyst Adam Friedman told The State. “Even if (prospects) don’t know Nyck, they know about him and they know South Carolina won this huge recruiting battle for him.”

The start to the 2024 class aside, there’s been little time for Beamer to rest. Freshmen signees report this week. Recruiting camp season has also begun in earnest.

Beamer glances back toward the glass door separating the ballroom area from the pathway to the resort’s beach access point. His three kids are out there somewhere, he jokes, running around and enjoying the sunshine.

That’s about as close as Beamer will get to sipping a piña colada in a beach chair this week. After all, he has a few more recruiting calls to make.