Nyck Harbor has done it again.
For the third time in his college career, South Carolina’s wide receiver sits atop Bruce Feldman’s annual Freaks List, with The Athletic putting Harbor at No. 1 in its 2026 rankings of the most physically gifted players in college football. And he’s not the only Gamecock making noise. Edge rusher Dylan Stewart and quarterback LaNorris Sellers also landed on the list, giving Shane Beamer’s program three representatives among Feldman’s 101 Freaks.
Harbor’s return to the top is familiar territory. He was No. 1 in 2023 and 2024 before slipping to No. 3 last year, and Feldman’s writeup made clear why he’s back on top.
“To be this big and this blazing fast is truly rare,” Feldman wrote. NFL scouts measured Harbor this offseason at 6-foot-6 and 243 pounds, with over 35-inch arms and an 82 1/2-inch wingspan.
He also ran a 10.1 in the 100 and a 20.20 in the 200 for South Carolina’s track team, all while competing against runners “60 and 70 pounds lighter than him.”
Feldman also pointed to Harbor’s growth as a receiver. The 21-year-old, who turned 21 in July, caught 30 passes last season for a team-high 618 yards and six touchdowns.
His 20.6 yards per catch ranked third in school history. He finished the year with back-to-back 100-yard games for the first time in his career, doing it against Texas A&M and Clemson.
This offseason, while weighing 235 pounds, he reached 23.8 mph on the GPS and checked in at just 5 percent body fat.
Stewart, meanwhile, is a first-timer on the Freaks List and came in at No. 14 overall. That made him the fourth-highest-ranked edge rusher and the eighth-highest-ranked defensive player in the 2026 edition.
Feldman described the 20-year-old as “as talented as any D-lineman in college football” and highlighted a 2025 season that included 12 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks, eight quarterback hurries and three forced fumbles in 11 games. As a freshman in 2024, Stewart posted 10.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks and three forced fumbles.
The 6-6, 250-pound defender has reached 22 mph on the GPS and was measured at 8 percent body fat this summer.
Sellers checked in at No. 36, his second appearance on the list after coming in at No. 33 a year ago. He remains the second-highest-ranked quarterback on Feldman’s board.
“At times, Sellers looks like Superman on the field,” Feldman wrote. He also pointed back to Sellers’ performance in South Carolina’s road win over Clemson two years ago, when he “ran around and through” a Clemson defensive line loaded with NFL talent.
The quarterback earned SEC Freshman of the Year honors in 2024 after completing 66 percent of his passes for 2,534 yards, 18 touchdowns and seven interceptions while adding 674 rushing yards and seven more scores. Last season, Feldman noted, Sellers was not as sharp after an offensive coordinator change, but with Kendal Briles taking over, he is expected to rebound. Sellers, listed at 6-3 and 235 pounds, is down a few pounds, dropped his body fat from 7 percent to 6 percent this offseason and also topped 22 mph on the GPS.
Clemson also had a player on the list. Junior linebacker Sammy Brown made his first appearance and landed at No. 20, cracking the top 25.
Feldman said Brown has been “as advertised, living up to his lofty recruiting hype.” Brown won ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year honors after recording 87 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss and five sacks, then followed that with a 2025 season in which he led the Tigers with 107 tackles, including 13.5 for loss, plus 5.0 sacks, seven pass breakups and an interception.
Feldman’s profile on Brown also underscored the linebacker’s rare physical profile: 6-2, 235 pounds, 600-pound squat, 385-pound bench press, a 10-7 broad jump, a 38-inch vertical and a 4.41 40. He also noted Brown’s academic profile, calling him “The aspiring pediatrician, who is majoring in biological sciences,” and adding that he carries a 3.86 GPA.
In Other News...
Williams-Brice Changes Are About To Reshape South Carolina Game Days
The first wave of Williams-Brice Stadium changes is nearly finished, and it is set to alter the way South Carolina fans move through game day long before they even settle into their seats. By the 2026 season, the stadium is expected to have more restroom fixtures, more Grab-and-Go concession stops, wider concourse space and clearer signage, all part of a long-awaited push to make the fan experience smoother around the building.
The bigger overhaul is still ahead, with Phase II scheduled to begin after the 2026 season and bring premium seating, escalators, elevators and new videoboards into the mix. For now, demand is already telling its own story: season tickets for 2026 are sold out, only a limited number of single-game tickets remain and the athletics department has moved fully to digital ticketing, setting the stage for a game-day routine that will feel very different at Williams-Brice before the next full round of construction even starts. [Read more 🡒]
South Carolina Has One Crucial Receiver Battle Behind Nyck Harbor
South Carolinas receiver room has plenty of talent and just as much uncertainty behind Nyck Harbor, the senior who led the Gamecocks in receiving yards and touchdowns last season. Harbor is the clear headliner, but the group around him has become one of the more interesting parts of camp, with veteran transfers trying to settle into roles and several highly rated young pass-catchers pushing to get on the field.
DJ Black is part of that mix after returning to the program and showing promising development, giving the staff another option to sort through as the season approaches. The real question for South Carolina is how quickly the younger receivers can turn practice momentum into game-day snaps, because beyond Harbor and the experienced newcomers, the depth chart still has a lot of room for movement. [Read more 🡒]