Not his success at Crestwood High School. Not the frustration of never receiving an offer from South Carolina. Not the initial growth at Western Kentucky, the knee injury that took nearly an entire season from him in 2021, or the subsequent career year.
And not even transferring back to his home state to play for his beloved Gamecocks, the school he grew up cheering for in Dalzell, S.C., less than an hour east of Columbia.
“I’m an old soul, man,” Simon told GamecockScoop. “I’m an old country boy. I like to hunt, I like to fish, I’m a big family person. I enjoy the simple things in life.”
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Dirt bikes, four-wheelers and football
The simplicity is almost startling. Simon is not on social media. He grew up competing with his dad and brother on the fishing boat, with a lofty $10 on the board for whoever reeled in the biggest catch on a given day.
Crestwood head coach Roosevelt Nelson remembers him attending a morning high school practice after arriving straight from his deer stand. One lonely night at Western Kentucky, he called home not to talk about football, or unpack any dramas from Bowling Green.
He needed advice on the ribs he was preparing to grill.
“I always taught him to hone in on you,” Simon’s father Chris told GamecockScoop. “That hard-working, go-getter attitude was brought from his upbringing. We teach them that whatever you want in this world and whatever you would like and desire to have, you have to work for it.”
The 6-foot-4, 238 Ib. tight end grew up playing basketball, baseball, and running track in addition to his football exploits. The speed made him a track ace. His height was an accelerator on the court. That slow and steady heartbeat was perfect for baseball. But combined, those skills produced a natural tight end, one capable of coming down with a jump ball and getting physical in pass protection.
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“He played ball for me as a freshman and I knew from a maturity standpoint and measurables he was going to be a good player,” Nelson told GamecockScoop. “Athletic wise he was off the charts. Very physical, could catch, run, throw, did all the things that a Division I football player needs to do.”
His football career took off in high school, with talent that “allows him to do whatever he wants on the football field,” as Western Kentucky tight ends coach Andy LaRussa said.
But he remained unmistakably himself as he blossomed into a Division I prospect. Chris, an ex-military man and truck driver, watched those same traits Simon exhibited as a kid grow into something he could harness in football.
“Josh used to go with me on the road,” Chris said. “He was always curious, and he would sit in my lap and I would let him hold the steering wheel. I taught him how to shift. He knew how to park the truck when he was eight, nine, ten-years old. He rode dirt bikes, four-wheelers, everything you can think about an outdoor country kid, he knows how to do that.”
“He’s just Josh”
The straightforward, matter-of-fact nature Simon carries himself with is evident to everyone who meets him. It struck LaRussa once he started working with him in the practice and film rooms at Western Kentucky.
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“You can have a good, honest conversation with him, you can joke with him, and then you can be serious and get to work,” LaRussa told GamecockScoop. “He’s just Josh. Sometimes it’s hard to describe, but that’s how it is. He’ll tell you how it is, and he likes to be told how it is, but he’s got a good sense of humor with it. It’s a good blend of everything.”
He immediately impacted the offense. As a true freshman, Simon reeled in 30 receptions for 430 yards with four touchdowns. He caught more passes in a COVID-19 abbreviated season the following year and looked poised for more in 2021. Then came the injury, a knee blow in Western Kentucky’s season-opening win over UT-Martin.
Simon had to watch from afar as quarterback Bailey Zappe set all-time FBS records for passing yards and touchdowns in a season in control of the Hilltoppers’ hyperkinetic offense. It might have been for the better.
“It just seemed like when he got injured, there was a year he had to watch and look at things differently,” LaRussa said. “And I think there’s just a different perspective when you’re recovering from an injury and you’re out there watching every day instead of playing.”
Armed with a fresh outlook, he torched defenses in 2022 with an average of 13.6 yards per reception and seven touchdowns. Not even an SEC defense was immune, as Auburn found out when Simon scored two touchdowns in a November trip to Jordan-Hare Stadium. And just hours after he put his name in the transfer portal, South Carolina made contact.
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Back home
None of this is surprising to Simon. At his lowest point, after not getting an original offer from South Carolina out of high school, he always believed he would end up back in Columbia.
“He always wanted to play for the Gamecocks,” Chris said. “When he thought he was getting ready to get that offer years ago and it didn’t happen, he was the one that came to me and told me, ‘dad, it’s going to be alright.’”
He called his shot. It took him back to where he felt he belonged, closer to his loved ones and living out a childhood dream. Immersed in the simple, southern life he grew up around, bringing his relentlessly direct mentality to the practice field.
“He’s just a good old boy, man,” fellow transfer tight end Trey Knox said. “Really down to earth, and just easy to talk to. You love having guys like that playing alongside you. He’s just a good dude. Very likable, and he just comes to work every day and plays his butt off.”
Looking for a place to talk about the scrimmage, fall camp or anything else related to South Carolina football? Head on over to the Insider’s Forum to discuss your thoughts.
The 2024 South Carolina high school football season is in high gear and SBLive Sports is the place to follow of the live scoring updates and finals.
Follow the action get the most to date scores by tracking the SBLive South Carolina High School Football Scoreboard. We will have in-game score updates and all of the final scores from every corner of the state. You can also search for full schedules and complete scores from all of your very favorite teams.
Here’s a guide to following all of the South Carolina high school football this week.
STATEWIDE SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD
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CLASS 5A SCORES | CLASS 4A SCORES
CLASS 3A SCORES | CLASS 2A SCORES
CLASS 1A SCORES
SCISA CLASS AAAA | SCISA CLASS AAA
SCISA CLASS AA | SCISA A
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2024 SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCHEDULES: FIND YOUR TEAM
Can’t make it to your favorite team’s game but still want to watch them live? You can watch dozens of South Carolina high school football games live on the NFHS Network:
WATCH LIVE ON NFHS NETWORK
We also invite you to visit the brand new South Carolina homepage on High School on SI, powered by SBLive Sports, for the latest news, highlights, analysis, scores, photos and information on South Carolina high school sports. Follow our live game coverage and read our feature stories, breaking news, the latest recruiting news, rankings and much more.
Follow SBLive South Carolina throughout the 2024 high school football season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!
Be sure to Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school football news.
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To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App | Download Android App
ESPN.com’s College Football Playoff predictor isn’t perfect because it applies analytics to a situation that ultimately will be decided by a committee of humans. But it does provide a nice guide and discussion piece about which teams have the best chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.
Because of that human element, the predictor has been updating twice each week, once on Sunday to account for Saturday’s games and again after the latest CFP rankings are released.
[More for subscribers: What latest rankings mean for South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances]
While the Gamecocks won their game on Saturday and got a lot of help from the teams around them last week, the logjam of SEC teams ahead of them in Tuesday’s rankings is still limiting their upside at this time.
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With the committee putting South Carolina behind fellow three-loss SEC teams Alabama and Ole Miss, the predictor currently gives South Carolina a 20 percent chance of making the 12-team field, which is three percentage points lower than its chances in Sunday’s update.
The Gamecocks do, of course, have one more huge opportunity to pad their resume when they travel to Clemson this weekend to renew the annual rivalry in what may be the biggest game in the matchup’s history.
Beat the Tigers, who are currently No. 12 in the CFP Top 25, and South Carolina’s chances of making the playoff jump to 46 percent, according to the predictor.
While that’s just under a coin flip, it’s also 12 percentage points lower than it was in Sunday’s update.
South Carolina is still very much in the hunt but is going to need to win and play very well against Clemson and get more help around it.
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As a reminder, the CFP committee’s top 12 teams won’t correlate exactly with the 12-team field.
The CFP will consist of the top five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked at-large schools. The top four conference champions will receive the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded by its CFP ranking. If that ranking is outside of the top 12 it will be seeded 12th as the final team in the field.
The teams seeded 5 through 12 will fight it out in the first round with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round to face the top four seeds.
The Gamecocks and Tigers are set for a noon showdown Saturday in Clemson.
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ESPN Analytics uses FPI to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation. The most likely CFP teams are provided for user selections. After user inputs, a likely bracket is generated and randomly simulated using FPI.
South Carolina football superfan Chris Paschal writes a weekly column during the season for GamecockCentral called “The Verdict.” Chris is a lawyer at Goings Law Firm in Columbia.
It will have been 44,592 days since Clemson students marched onto our campus with guns drawn when the Gamecocks take the field this Saturday in Death Valley. Back in 1902, Clemson students were mad because of a cartoon that depicted a Gamecock whipping a Tiger.
They marched on our campus, ready to cause bodily harm, over a cartoon. For 44,592 days, Clemson students, fans, coaches, players, and administrators have done everything but declare war on South Carolina to ensure they remain the superior football program in the state.
In 1902 there was more than just the cartoon. In 1902, Carolina beat Clemson.
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it best following the game: the Clemson Tiger “was so successfully tamed this morning by Carolina. Its tail was twisted and twisted by the sturdy ‘pig skin pushers’ of Carolina, and after two hours and more of hard battle it gave up further fight, for time was called and it became as tame as the proverbial lamb.”
Carolina upset Clemson who at the time was led by John Heisman and was considered one of the great southern football powers. I think that too probably had a little something to do with the hostilities and hurt feelings coming from the Clemson students.
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For the 121st time this Saturday, it will be Carolina and Clemson playing a football game against each other. And while we are past the days of armed invasions, you can’t help but think this Saturday’s showdown may be the most consequential in the series’ history.
There have certainly been big matchups in years past. I am not discounting 1987. I am not overlooking 1979. I understand 2011-2013 featured some great teams. But this coming Saturday, both Clemson and Carolina will still be alive and in contention to bring home a national title.
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The chances for both are not significant, but they are legitimate. For the first time in the entirety of the rivalry’s history, both Carolina and Clemson fans can hope that with a win over their hated rival they are one step closer to a playoff berth, which means one more step closer in the quest for a national championship.
Hopefully, the players donning the garnet and black won’t think similar thoughts as they run out onto the field for what should be a cold but sunny day. This game to the players needs to be about one thing: beating a team they are better than.
In continuing the list of firsts, for the first time in roughly a decade, South Carolina will have what I consider to be the better football team when they kick the ball off against Clemson. I think we have a better defense, I think we have a better offensive line, I think we have skill position players that are just as good as Clemson’s (if not better), and I think we have the better quarterback.
But that is what I think. I am an attorney. I am a fan. Clemson players won’t just roll over because I declared we have the better team. In fact, I expect this Dabo Swinney-led Clemson football team to fight like hell in an effort to keep their thumb still firmly on top of us.
Like Clemson fans, I think Clemson football players and coaches also think it is their birthright to beat the Gamecocks. And why shouldn’t they?
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Clemson has won eight out of the last nine against Carolina. They have danced on our sidelines in the fourth quarter to Sandstorm, they have talked about how they think they will dominate us; they have talked about how we aren’t the real USC nor are we the real Carolina.
Underneath this façade of respect and admiration for this year’s Carolina team, Clemson fans (and I assume players) quietly assume 2024 will be just like most other recent years. They assume the moment will be too big, they assume the ghosts of years past will be too much, and they assume that by about 3:30 in the afternoon, Carolina will have once again not been physically or mentally strong enough to defeat Clemson.
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But I also think these assumptions, which often manifest themself in a holier-than-thou arrogance, stem from a small shred of doubt and fear that has crept into their minds. Carolina fans had no idea Clemson was passing the Gamecocks as a football program until it was too late. From 2009-2013, Carolina won five straight over Clemson. They assumed Clemson and their bumpkin coach were finally second fiddle to the Gamecocks. They ignored Clemson’s recruiting successes, they explained away Clemson’s double-digit win seasons as illegitimate due to being in the ACC, and they watched Clemson build a juggernaut that had passed Carolina in a very real and lasting way by 2014.
All it took was one whipping in 2014 for Carolina fans to realize that Clemson was now on a path that would destroy Gamecock hopes and dreams for many years to come. That feeling of “oh, crap” that Carolina fans felt in the few weeks leading up to the 2014 Clemson games, I wonder if Clemson fans are feeling that very same thing leading up to this Saturday’s game.
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Maybe the thought of Carolina passing Clemson as a program hasn’t even crossed their minds. Maybe it is absurd that I would mention that in this column. Maybe by the final snap on Saturday, Clemson will have soundly defeated Carolina and made me and so many hopeful Gamecock fans look foolish.
Or maybe Harbor, Kennard, Stewart, Hemingway, Sanders, Knight, Emmanwori, Sellers, and so many other Gamecock stalwarts are capable of handling business and showing we do have the better team.
A win this weekend could be program defining. It at the very least could be season defining.
Is Shane Beamer and this Gamecock program always a bridesmaid but never the bride? Or is this team going to let this state and this nation understand that this is a new type of Gamecock football program?
We won’t know until Saturday, but I will be in Clemson cheering Carolina on, with the hope – the belief – that we will see that latter. Let’s tame the tiger once again into the proverbial lamb.
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