South Carolina’s former starters might not be future starters

South Carolina expects to have three former offensive line starters healthy enough to play against Vanderbilt on Oct. 28. That doesn’t mean all three will return to their starting job.

“We are going to evaluate and play the best five,” Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp said. “We will evaluate that in practice. The best friend I have is competition. Those guys need to compete to earn their job. The best five who give us the opportunity to win the game are who we will go with.”

Right tackle Zack Bailey (ankle) has missed the past three games. Right guard Cory Helms (ankle) has missed the past two games, and left tackle Malik Young (ankle) missed last week’s game. All three began the year in the starting lineup, but South Carolina has started to have some run game rhythm with the lineup of Dennis Daley (left tackle), Sadarius Hutcherson (left guard), Alan Knott (center), Donell Stanley (right guard) and Blake Camper (right tackle).

The Gamecocks (5-2, 3-2 SEC) have an bye week this week and return to the field in two weeks against the Commodores in Williams-Brice Stadium.

Wide receiver Terry Googer also is expected to return for the Vanderbilt game. Wide receiver Chad Terrell (ankle) is questionable.

Running back Rico Dowdle, who suffered a broken bone in his left leg against Tennessee on Saturday, will have surgery this week and is expected to miss the rest of the season.

“It’s a tough deal,” Muschamp said. “I told him, ‘It’s a bone, you don’t minimize anything, but it’s better than being a ligament or cartilage.’ ”

Meet the new backs

With the injury to Dowdle, 5-foot-10, 209-pound sophomore Mon Denson moves into the third back role behind Ty’Son Williams and A.J. Turner. Denson had four carries for 14 yards against the Volunteers.

“He’s a heavy back, and he gets the ball north-south,” Muschamp said. “I had a lot of confidence in Mon to begin with. I think he can do a really good job. He’s going to run hard. He runs behind his pads. He runs with a good pad level.”

Transfer Caleb Kinlaw will be the fourth-string running back, Muschamp said.

Players of the game

Turner was named South Carolina’s offensive player of the game and one of its special teams players of the game in Saturday’s win. Alan Knott was the offensive lineman of the week. D.J. Wonnum and Chris Lammons were the defensive players of the game, and Keir Thomas and Dante Sawyer were the defensive linemen of the week. Place-kicker Parker White was named special teams player of the week.

Still searching

South Carolina wanted to get tight end Hayden Hurst the ball more against Tennessee, but the Volunteers made that difficult, Muschamp said.

“They did a good job of taking him away with some things they did,” Muschamp said. “We had some things dialed up, we just couldn’t get it to him. Late in the game, (offensive coordinator Kurt Roper) called a speed sweep just to get him the ball.”

Hurst finished with one carry for 4 yards and no catches.

For your consideration

Muschamp has asked the SEC to review how Tennessee was able to run one play with three seconds late in Saturday’s game. The Volunteers snapped the ball with four seconds remaining in the game and threw an incomplete pass but were able to run one more play because one second remained on the clock.

This story was originally published October 15, 2017 at 8:23 PM with the headline "South Carolina’s former starters might not be future starters."