Beamer, Staley have shouted him out. Why is this USC student superfan so passionate?

He looks possessed.

Sitting behind the basket at Colonial Life Arena in the front of Section 110, South Carolina sophomore Harris Mellor is about to pop a blood vessel. Across the court, Gamecocks guard Jacobi Wright drills a triple to extend USC’s lead over Ole Miss on Wednesday night.

In the first row of the student section, Mellor leans forward and lets out a giant roar. His eyes bulge. His light brown hair bounces as his face trembles. He looks deprived of oxygen. Later in the game, Mellor watches Collin Murray-Boyles’ monster block and his mouth goes agape. He bends his knees and throws his arms out, acting like his friends need to hold him up.

Over the last six months, Mellor has made quite the argument as South Carolina’s most-fervorous student supporter.

His case for the title started in November. A girl associated with the Barstool Gamecocks social media account was walking around the Williams-Brice Stadium student section ahead of South Carolina’s noon kickoff against Jacksonville State. The Gamecocks were 2-6. Attendance was low. All of Mellor’s friends were either still in bed or partying in the frat lots with no plans to go inside the stadium.

Mellor went to the game alone. Pissed off.

“The vibes all around were off,” he told The State this month. “We still have a chance at a bowl game. Why is the energy so low here?”

That’s when a girl tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he’d like to be interviewed. He did not want to be interviewed so much as he wanted to unleash a steaming rant.

“You’re gonna wanna be videoing this,” Mellor told her.

For the next 45 seconds, Mellor screamed into the camera like a mad man. He said he had been up since 5:45 a.m, admitted he hadn’t eaten a thing and would continue to starve himself until South Carolina won — at which time he was going to “FEAST!!”

“This is Gamecock football,” he belted out. “I don’t know what this is. I know we’re 2-6. I get that. But that doesn’t mean I lose my spirit for this team. Doesn’t mean it.”

The video leads most folks to two conclusions: He either has the acting chops of Leonardo DiCaprio or he just spent the past six hours drinking his body weight worth of Busch Light.

“You see him on TV and you’d think he was hammered,” said Mellor’s friend, Jacob Shapiro, who admittedly did not show up to the Jacksonville State game. “But he’s dead sober.”

“My parents saw that video and the first thing they asked me was, ‘Were you drunk?’ ” Mellor said. “Honestly, no. People who know me know this: I am insane about these sports teams. People think I’m drunk or whatever watching these games. I’m not.”

It’s real passion for the Gamecocks

To understand why a sophomore in college would willingly rise at the crack of dawn with enough nervous energy to go without eating to watch a 2-6 football team at noon, you have to understand that this has always been Mellor’s dream.

Not the early mornings and empty stomachs. But to live within walking distance of Williams-Brice Stadium and have free tickets to South Carolina football games.

He grew up in Little Silver, New Jersey, the son of two Northeasterners who met at the University of South Carolina, graduated as Gamecocks and eventually moved back to the Northeast.

Which meant Mellor went to high school 700 miles away from Columbia able to recite half the roster from the Steve Spurrier-era USC teams. When the Gamecocks men’s hoops team made the Final Four, there were no classmates sharing his joy.

“When I was rushing a fraternity, I was mostly with New York-New Jersey kids,” said Mellor, now a finance major. “And they didn’t really understand my literal obsession with the sports teams.”

He continued: “Now that I’m here and at the school, I feel like I can be one of the biggest supporters of this team. I love it. I live and die for these sports (teams).”

Beamer, Staley take notice

It’s the type of unbridled passion that coaches wish they could bottle and serve to the entire student body and, perhaps, even sometimes their players. A day after the Barstool video came out, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley commented on it.

“I don’t know who this is BUT I’ll (take) 18k of him at (Colonial Life Arena) tomorrow at 1pm!” She tweeted. “Let’s freakin gooooo GAMECOCKS!!!

A week later, in his postgame press conference after South Carolina beat Vanderbilt in another noon kickoff, Shane Beamer grinned behind the podium and mentioned Mellor unprompted.

“I saw the little clip popping around social media of the young student from last week with the 12 noon kickoff and his mentality,” Beamer said. “I saw a lot of that in the Cockpit down there as well. So shout out to him and the rest of our students.”

Since that clip, Mellor just kept popping up. During the USC men’s basketball team’s upset of No. 6 Kentucky, the cameras caught Mellor in his usual seat. His face is a tomato, eyes ballooning out of their sockets. He’s waving at the camera, mouthing, “See you in March.”

In the nicest way possible, he looks like he’s on drugs.

“That’s what everyone says,” Shapiro jokes about his buddy.

The two of them attend almost every men’s basketball game together these days. For Tuesday’s contest against Ole Miss, they Ubered to the arena from their apartment 4:14 p.m. … for a 6:30 p.m. game. Doors didn’t open until 5:30 and they sat alone for over an hour killing time. Finally, they scanned their tickets and sprinted down the stairs to Section 110.

Every other student, they said, wants to sit near center court. They love being behind the basket. More action. The players are closer. The bench is closer. And the camera is closer. The Colonial Life Arena camera operators know Mellor by now — and he gets as much air time as Staley.

“I’m usually like, ‘Yeah, let’s go,’ ” Shapiro said. “Then I’ll look to my right and his veins are popping out of his neck. Occasionally I’ll try and match his energy and I’ll have to sit down because I’m seriously light-headed.”

Most of his friends think he’s crazy. To that he has a retort that ought to be the slogan for fans everywhere.

“I’m not crazy,” Mellor said. “I just care.”