Gamecocks senior confident he’ll get another year, excited for last run

Caleb Kinlaw doesn’t know if he’ll be a part of the South Carolina football team next season.

But the fifth-year senior who tore his ACL in August is pretty confident.

“The chances are pretty high that I’ll get another year,” Kinlaw said Monday, days before earning his bachelor’s degree.

The former Goose Creek High School star has been through a lot from a career that took him from the Lowcountry to Madison, Wisconsin, Mississippi and back to his home state. The knee injury robbed him of a senior season, but he’d like to get another

“It’ll mean just the world,” Kinlaw said. “When you’re on back end of it, you kind of cherish things a little more, especially playing football, you realize you only get to play college four or five years.

“I really want to redeem myself because I feel like my career has been riddled with injuries and has been a disappointment to me personally.”

Kinlaw redshirted his first college season and then played a small role in 2015 at Wisconsin. He left that school, spent 2016 in junior college fighting through injuries and then walked on at USC. He had 47 yards in 2017 against Wofford deep in a blowout.

But that season, he also became a valuable member of South Carolina’s special teams unit, which included recovering a crucial onside kick to secure a victory.

Out of high school, Kinlaw was a three-star recruit and ran for 4,186 yards, averaging 8.9 yards per carry on a series of strong Goose Creek teams.

Kinlaw admitted he felt flat-out depressed when he tore his knee, but now calls it a blessing in disguise. It allowed him to gain appreciation for what he had and the chance to play.

Even something like special teams, the grunt work, grew into something he cherished.

“I think I enjoy it a lot more now than I ever did before,” Kinlaw said. “I never played special teams until I got here. The only time I played special teams was with the ball in my hands.”

He’ll have to wait, along with a few other Gamecocks looking for a sixth college season. In the meantime, he’s also got his degree, and perhaps a chance to further his education a little more before saying goodbye to college.

“It’s just a blessing just to be able to transfer and then finish and graduate and then to have the opportunity to pursue a master’s and be able to play one more year,” Kinlaw said.

This story was originally published December 21, 2018 at 10:12 AM.