Inside the commitment: Rocket Sanders
The crown jewel of South Carolina’s three-man transfer portal running back class is clearly former Arkansas running back Rocket Sanders, though that shouldn’t in any way diminish the value of also adding both Oscar Adaway III and Jawarn Howell.
The Gamecocks have now completely revamped their running back room in a matter of days and have certainly the top transfer portal haul in the county at that position so far and arguably one of the best overall RB classes in the country when adding Matthew Fuller to the conversation.
Getting back to Sanders, a ton of credit goes to the staff for making such quick work of getting Sanders in the boat.
We’ll have to ask Sanders and verify which school was literally the first to express interest but South Carolina was one of, if not the very first school school to reach out to Sanders after he entered the portal. Dowell Loggains, and his connections to Sanders, were instrumental in quickly letting Sanders know how serious Carolina was about landing him and in getting the official visit set up.
Getting the last visit has long been believed to be an advantage in high school recruiting, but in portal recruiting it’s all about early movement and getting a visit on the books. In the case of Sanders, Carolina not only got the first visit but ended up getting the only one — managing to show Sanders everything he needed to see during his South Carolina official visit over the weekend.
What type of player is South Carolina getting in Sanders?
While injuries and a scheme change kept him from hitting his form in 2023, Is Carolina can get the 2022 version of the Rocket, they’ll have a bonafide top half of the SEC feature back, and that’s in a league that’s typically loaded at the position. To put it in perspective, his 1,443 rushing yards in 2022 were the fourth-most at Arkansas all time and ranked second in the SEC and 13th nationally for that season.
Diving into some of Sanders’ PFF numbers, Sanders finished second in the SEC in 2022 in forced missed tackles (65), runs of 10+ yards (41), and runs of 15+ yards (23) — he’s an explosive run waiting to happen.
Listed at 6-foot-2, 242-pounds, Sanders will likely want to climb back down a bit from that weight, but no matter his playing weight, he’s an absolute load at running back. Saying that Sanders is just simply bigger and faster than most may not be the most in-depth evaluation but his size/speed combination is simply off the charts compared to most. This is an NFL skillset.
His explosion — both in his ability to get to the edge in the perimeter run game or to hesitate, stick his foot in the ground, and explode through a hole in a different direction — is also impressive for a player his size. Once he gets to the next level, he’s got the top-end speed to extend an explosive run into an even bigger play and that’s where his size comes back into play as well as defensive backs can struggle to deal with the much bigger Sanders in space (the stiff arm is violent too).
While he does run with some pure power, he seems to be at his best when he’s able to find space and in some ways is used more like a smaller back due to his speed, balance, and explosiveness. There is a certain smoothness to the way Sanders runs and he appears light on his feet for a player his size. He also willing to show patience while using his vision to allow plays to develop in front of him.
Arkansas under Briles in 2022 did a great job of finding space for him to operate while using an array of run looks up front (mostly all zone-based) combined with the run threat of QB KJ Jefferson and also using the screen game and other pass plays to try to get him in space there too.
Some reading I’ve done on Sanders seems to indicate he’ll need to continue to improve his pass pro (I haven’t seen enough one way or another to say that myself and his PFF numbers are actually solid there so it’s not a concern) but on the other end of the out-of-the-back-field passing game, he shows good hands and the ability to quickly convert from the process of catching the ball to being an effective runner.
South Carolina and Sanders will need to find a way to unlock the player that terrorized SEC defenses in 2022 but if he can be even close to that then he’ll provide a massive boost to a rushing attack that never really got going last year. And with the combination of Sanders, Adaway, and Howell (don’t sleep on this guy), what was a major question mark is now a potential strength.
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