What explosive Gamecock signee expects from his role at South Carolina
This spring, Jaheim Bell will stand on the sideline, watch, and observe.
It’s all the early signee South Carolina tight end can do, but he plans to do it with an eye for detail. A torn ACL has him out until June, so he’ll have a couple other focuses this spring.
“Learning the playbook,” Bell said. “Getting mental reps instead of physical reps. Learning the playbook is going to be big for me.”
What do mental reps entail?
“Watching other people do it, and if they do it wrong, listen to the correct way of how to do it. Watching film and all that.”
That requires a different sort of energy, but it’s what he’ll have to do before he can get down to business.
The 6-foot-2, 207-pounder out of south Georgia publicly committed to the Gamecocks at the start of the early signing day, but he’d been silently pledged for much longer than that. He offers a talent that can help in a multitude of places.
“The role that coach Muschamp and coach Bentley and coach Bobo were talking to me about just kind of how I was used in high school,” Bell said. “They want me to come play outside receiver, slot, a little bit of H-back and maybe a couple reps in the backfield. So just pretty much everywhere. They’re just trying to get me the ball.”
Last season, Bell had 210 yards in five games before the injury. As a junior, he had 770 yards on 60 catches and ran for a couple scores.
The Gamecocks have a good bit of flexibility at his position after playing it desperately thin a season ago. Nick Muse is back, also coming off a torn ACL, having held a big role last season. The rest of the group is composed of redshirt freshmen (Traevon Kenion, KeShawn Toney), a lightly-used redshirt junior (Will Register) and another freshman (Eric Shaw). Veteran Kyle Markway decided not to return for a sixth year.
Bell described the ACL injury as a short-term mental challenge, forcing him to cope with the loss of more than half his senior season (his team made the state quarterfinals before losing by two points).
“It was pretty stressful after I found out that I couldn’t play the rest of my senior year,” Bell said. “It was stressful and hard on me.”
He said the only thing he was worried about heading into enrolling was keeping up the strength in his lower body, assuming the rest would be OK. He’ll have to spend much of this semester rehabbing, doing everything a player can when he can’t actually engage in the game.
In short, he’s not stressing too much.
“I’m thinking about having great grades and then come in as a freshman and making a difference,” Bell said. “I’m just ready to get there and ball.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 8:35 AM with the headline "What explosive Gamecock signee expects from his role at South Carolina."
