Gamecocks' Rocket Sanders scrimmages as renovation of run game nears debut (2025)

COLUMBIA— Shane Beamer relaxed thousands of nerves on Saturday.

“I thought he looked great. He’s a pro. Ran the ball hard. He’s just a really good overall running back,” South Carolina’s fourth-year coach said. “We got him some carries in there today, and I thought he showed that he’s Rocket Sanders.”

The exhale could have flattened a redwood. Beamer had said that Sanders, South Carolina’s prize acquisition from the transfer portal with the promise of (pardon the pun) rocketing the Gamecocks’ rushing attack into lethality, was perfectly healthy and fine after sitting out the entire spring while recovering from shoulder surgery, but then Sanders didn’t scrimmage last week.

The excuse was worthy— there was no need to put him out there as there’s no sense putting that shoulder at risk in a meaningless exhibition— but USC fans who have been here for far too many seasons responded. The thought was, “Sure, I get that, but he’s gonna have to get hit sometime. Wouldn’t it be better now than later, like, closer to the season?”

Beamer walked in a week later, after USC’s second and final scrimmage of preseason camp, and cooled the jets. Not the Rocket, the jets.

“In the preseason game last week, we did some 7-on-7 before the scrimmage started and he participated in that. We just didn’t put him in the actual playing part of it. Today we did,” he said. “We wanted him to get tackled. That happened some in practice this week, where we tackled in practice and he got tackled a couple times.”

Statistics are not provided from closed scrimmages, but all informal inquiries confirmed that yes, the Rocket showed no signs of landing. The carefully constructed treatment plan— “Rocket science” — devised by senior associate director of football strength and conditioning Chip Morton, is about to turn theory into conclusion.

“When it came down to me and Chip, he showed me the way to take preparation and just take one day at a time. Because when I first got in here and I got in with Chip, I was just ready to go, you know what I mean, and just taking everything fast,” Sanders said in the first week of camp. “It was a lot of patience stuff and not just working on my shoulder, but working on my mobility of everything, my hips, my knees, everything.”

The Gamecocks, 126th of 130 teams in rushing offense in 2023, are depending on the plan working. While the first game is still 12 days away, they love what they see.

“I was probably nervous a little bit on the first day. But when I got going, that was pretty good,” Sanders said. “I feel like when it came down to getting back in the routine and just doing handoffs with the quarterbacks and just getting back in that rhythm, I feel like that helped me out.”

Now comes the expectation. Sanders has always been intertwined with the Gamecocks, in a weird way. Justin Stepp recruited him to Arkansas and when Sanders arrived, he was met with a phone call saying Stepp had just signed on with USC, since he had family nearby.

And since he was recruited as an “athlete,” he needed a set position. Head coach Sam Pittman told him he could try running back.

The rest of the story is known, especially the 156 yards and two touchdowns Sanders hung on USC in a 2022 Arkansas win. The Gamecocks, with Arkansas alum and former assistant coach Dowell Loggains leading the way, knew that any part of that would be a monstrous improvement on what they had in 2023.

That's provided, of course, that he could get healthy, which he appears to be. All those mornings of arriving at the football operations building between 5-5:30 a.m. for treatment, then lifting, then meetings and practice, have rebuilt the ship.

He’s the pilot. If he needs to be.

“We got guys at receiver, quarterback, offensive line. So I’m really trying to gain trust with them. And be a leader, not just for myself, but as a team as a whole, because more team goals,” he said. “Of course I’ve got self goals, but I feel like when it comes down to it, for a winning team, I feel like I’ve got to have team goals as well.”