Bangally Kamara could be making a return to the ACC next season.
Kamara left Pitt for South Carolina over the offseason but re-entered the transfer portal earlier this month at the encouragement of Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer — after attempting to redshirt and return next season.
“He came in my office yesterday and told me that he was redshirting,” Beamer said earlier this month at a press conference. “I told him that’s not quite how this works, that we could have a discussion about his role and is redshirting best, and we went back and forth a little bit. I think his situation is a little bit different than somebody else, there’s guys on this team right now that we’ve had conversations with that, look, we’re doing what we have to do in ’24 to win football games, but if we can save your redshirt year and not play you in five games, we will …
“But he was a guy that played a season-high in snaps on Saturday at linebacker that was going to continue to play more for us moving forward. My job is to do what’s best for the team and what was best for the team in my mind is Gally continuing to play and help us go try to beat Alabama this weekend. And he didn’t quite feel the same way, so in the end, I made the decision for him that it was probably best to move on.”
According to Pete Nakos of On3, Kamara is deciding between Cal, Kansas, SMU and Illinois for his final season of collegiate eligibility.
Pitt knocked off Cal earlier this year while the Panthers will fly down to Dallas, Texas for the second ever matchup against the Mustangs next month.
Kamara played in four games for South Carolina this season, including a season-high 30 defensive snaps against Ole Miss in his final game. He recorded nine tackles (seven solo) in his 70 total snaps this season. He recorded 1,144 defensive snaps over his last two seasons at Pitt and recorded 104 tackles (48 solo), 9.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, an interception, eight pass breakups and a fumble recovery.
Pitt lost Kamara and Solomon DeShields to the transfer portal over the offseason, which required the Panthers to completely rebuild the linebacking corps. And it’s worked out perfectly so far. The young linebacking corps featuring Kyle Louis, Rasheem Biles and Braylan Lovelace has been better than perhaps ever before.
The transfer portal will officially open on Dec. 9 and close on Jan. 7, 2025.
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