USC’s Dakereon Joyner injured and won’t play vs. Kentucky

South Carolina football’s Dakereon Joyner will miss Saturday’s game against Kentucky because of a hamstring injury, coach Will Muschamp confirmed Thursday night.

Joyner will miss the game and hopefully recover in time during the open week to play against Georgia, Muschamp said in his weekly Carolina Calls radio show.

Joyner has actually been playing through injury for two weeks, Muschamp said Thursday. During Tuesday’s practice, however, he was limited and experienced more pain than usual. After an MRI on Tuesday night, Muschamp made the call to shut him down for the week

“We didn’t want to further injure him and looking at the MRI, they felt like where it was pulled a little bit, we could further injure him,” Muschamp said. “We’re not going to do that. So we shut him down. Talked to the trainer and him today, he was upset, obviously, because he wants to play in the game and he’s been managing it for two weeks now. It’s just a situation where we gotta take care of him right now.”

Freshman Ryan Hilinski will start at QB, with redshirt sophomore Jay Urich backing him up. After missing several practices last week ahead of Missouri with elbow soreness, Hilinski’s health is “outstanding,” Muschamp said Thursday.

Joyner has split time as a wide receiver and as the backup quarterback this season. At QB, he is 7-of-12 passing for 89 yards. He has 10 rushes for 49 yards and a touchdown.

At receiver, Joyner has four catches for 29 yards.

Muschamp and South Carolina’s coaches have been looking for ways to keep Joyner a big part of the game plan at both positions.

Urich also plays receiver but has no catches on the season. He completed 6-of-8 passes for 84 yards and a touchdown and caught nine passes for 130 yards in the Gamecocks’ spring game.

Saturday’s game is a 7:30 p.m. kick on SEC Network. The Gamecocks are off next week.

NEXT

Who: Kentucky at South Carolina

When: 7:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 28

Where: Williams-Brice Stadium, Columbia

TV: SEC Network

Line: South Carolina by 3

This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 3:09 PM.