Gamecocks RB Faison, 25, eligible to play in 2025
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South Carolina announced Monday that transfer running back Rahsul Faison has been granted an additional season of eligibility by the NCAA to play this season.
Faison, a Utah State transfer who earned second-team All-Mountain West honors in 2024, signed with the Gamecocks in January but had to wait until the week of the season opener to finally get cleared to play.
“I applaud the NCAA for looking at all of the facts in Rahsul Faison’s appeal and making the right decision today,” South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati wrote on X. “He has been patiently waiting for this decision, and we share in his excitement to have one more year of eligibility and be a member of our football team this year.”
The No. 5 running back in ESPN’s transfer portal top 100 rankings will be a seventh-year senior this fall and is expected to make a significant impact in a South Carolina offense that must replace All-SEC running back Raheim Sanders.
Faison was expected to enter the NFL draft after rushing for 1,109 yards and eight touchdowns at Utah State last season, but he instead opted to enter the transfer portal after the NCAA issued a blanket waiver in response to the case of Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, granting an additional year of eligibility to former junior college transfers who would have exhausted their NCAA eligibility following the 2024-25 season.
Faison, 25, spent two years at Snow College in Utah in 2021 and 2022 and also took online courses at Lackawanna College in Pennsylvania in 2020. South Carolina had been working since January to get Faison’s additional season of eligibility granted in a lengthy NCAA waiver process that South Carolina coach Shane Beamer called “frustrating” in May.
The 6-foot, 218-pound back rushed for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns over his two seasons at Utah State with seven 100-yard performances. Faison forced 98 missed tackles during his time with the Aggies, second-most in the Mountain West behind Boise State‘s Ashton Jeanty according to ESPN Research.
The preseason No. 13 Gamecocks open the season on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, ESPN) against Virginia Tech at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
