What will it take for USC’s Nyck Harbor to break out in 2024? It starts with stopping

South Carolina offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains is talking about his most-freakish player. Nyck Harbor is a hard man for comparisons. He is 6-foot-5, 235 pounds and one of the fastest Americans alive.

He runs the 100-meter dash in just a shade over 10 seconds and is so fast in the 200m (20.20-second personal best) that he was an automatic qualifier for the Olympic Trials. Did we mention he is 6-5, 235 pounds? Or that he just turned 19 last month?

For reference: The fastest American right now is 27-year-old Noah Lyles, who is seven inches shorter and weighs almost 80 pounds less than Harbor. Ask Lyles to throw a couple dumbbells into a backpack and see if he can still keep up with the South Carolina sophomore.

All that is to say: Harbor is silly fast. It’s why EA Sports made him a virtual cheat code‚ one of only two players in the new college football video game with a speed rating of 99.

Which is awesome on the track. Run well. Run fast. Run straight.

In football, being fast is nothing if you’re not shifty. How many times does a wide receiver run a true go-route? How many times after the snap do they get to book it to the end zone, waiting for the ball to fall into their breadbasket? Once a game? Twice? It isn’t often.

Loggains is trying to explain this, trying to get it to fit to Harbor.

“You guys ever seen ‘Mighty Ducks 2’?” Loggains asks.

He’s referring to, as 1990s kids would know, the Disney movie “D2: The Mighty Ducks,” the hockey film starring Emilio Estevez that’s not viewed kindly by Rotten Tomatoes. In the film is a character named Luis Mendoza who is a bullet on skates. Smooth and wicked fast.

“There’s just one problem,” the character Mr. Tibbles says in the film, “he has a little trouble stopping.”

“It’s the same principle, in some ways (with Harbor),” Loggains says, bringing his “Mighty Ducks” reference back to football. “He has to learn how to drop his weight and get out of a break and not be a guy where it’s like, we can only run go (routes), posts, slants, deep crossers.”

That is the honest assessment of Harbor, which can be hard to find.

Harbor sets big goals for 2024

During a stop in Florence along the Welcome Home speaking tour this summer, a fan asked head coach Shane Beamer what so many have wanted to since Harbor committed to South Carolina as a five-star Superman.

“I think you know a whole lot more than me,” he said to laughter. “Why wouldn’t you just let Nyckoles Harbor run down the field as fast as he can go?”

“Well, we do,” Beamer said, grinning. “We just line him up outside — but whether you call him a tight end or you call him a receiver, defenses aren’t dumb. They see No. 8 come out there and wherever he is, they’re gonna be aware of him and they’re gonna do their best to not have a linebacker matched on him.”

In other words: Defenses can shut down straight-line speed. They can take a lightning bolt out of a game if said lightning bolt isn’t able to go through the entire route tree — if said lighting bolt can’t shift all over the field.

“The best thing that ever happened to his football career is (that) track season’s over,” Loggains said. “He’s got to learn to be football fast, not track fast.”

To Loggains, the solution is time. Reps.

Harbor essential came to South Carolina last season and was learning a new position, learning the intricacies of being a wide receiver that can’t just overpower and outrun everyone. That takes time.

It will take hours in front of the JUGS machine. It will take practice after practice to train his body to better cut and stop. It will take who knows how many reps against SEC defensive backs to hone the body control and ball skills that big receivers like Alshon Jeffery had.

Harbor in 2023 showed small glimpses of the magic expected when you look like Mr. Olympia. But, still, he caught a dozen passes for less than 200 yards. It never looked like he was completely comfortable on the field.

And perhaps that’s changed. When asked what he hopes to achieve as a sophomore, he was not shy.

“Some of my goals — cracking that 1,000-yard barrier,” Harbor said. “Cracking the 10-touchdown barrier. Just replicating the production, or just improving on what (Xavier Legette) did last year.”

That is bold. It feels both like a stretch and completely plausible. That is why Harbor is so much of an enigma. And, for what it’s worth, he seems to be aware of that.

“I’ve got the ‘big potential’ word next to my name — and I’m glad to have it,” Harbor said. “But at the end of the day, potential’s not gonna get you nowhere. It’s about what you do on the field.”