Could MarShawn Lloyd return for spring game? Shane Beamer updates his status
When South Carolina football kicks off its first spring practice under new head coach Shane Beamer, one of the most highly regarded and anticipated players on USC’s roster won’t be fully active at Saturday’s practice.
Whether he’ll back in time for the annual Garnet & Black spring game on April 24 remains unclear.
Redshirt freshman running back MarShawn Lloyd is still recovering from the torn ACL that ended his 2020 season before it even began last preseason, Beamer confirmed Thursday with reporters. He’s one of a number of players who will be missing in Saturday’s opening practice.
“We certainly have some guys here or there that maybe got banged up here in the last few weeks with some of our walk-throughs and competitive drills we’ve been doing at nights,” Beamer said. “And guys that are obviously recovering from some surgeries and things like that or injuries from this past season, so no, we won’t be full speed at every single position. We’ve got a handful of guys that will be limited and we got a handful of guys that we hope to get back before the end of spring, but we may not.”
When asked specifically whether Lloyd, the highest-rated running back South Carolina has signed since Marcus Lattimore, will have rehabbed enough by late April to get on the field at Williams-Brice Stadium, Beamer demurred.
“I think we’re so far away from the spring game, it’d be hard to say yea or nay on him right now when something is over a month away. But I can tell you this, I mean, he’s been fantastic this offseason. I was just telling him a couple of days ago how impressed I am with him,” Beamer said.
Specifically, Beamer said he and the coaching staff have developed scores to evaluate players based on how they take “care of their business.”
“He’s right up there at the very top of our team as far as accountability goes, just being everywhere that he’s supposed to be when he’s supposed to be there, whether it be meetings, walk-throughs, class treatment, nutrition,” Beamer said. “He’s doing everything right right now, so he is certainly on track and has been out there for all of our stuff that we’ve been doing as a team at night in a limited capacity.
South Carolina’s QB competition
Beamer made it clear Thursday that Luke Doty will, in all likelihood, be the first quarterback to take snaps with the first-team offense. But that doesn’t mean Doty is the presumptive starter for the Gamecocks moving forward.
There are no other quarterbacks currently on the roster who have started a game on the FBS level, much less at USC. Redshirt senior Jason Brown is transferring in from FCS Saint Francis, freshman Colten Gauthier has only been on campus a few months, and redshirt sophomore walk-on Connor Jordan has never seen any game action.
“One of the core values of this program is competition, and we’re going to be about competition every single day,” Beamer said. “So the fact that Luke Doty is the only quarterback that we have in the building that has started a game at Carolina, and there’s four in that room with Jason, Colton and Connor and two of those guys just got here in January — Yeah, I would imagine that Luke Doty is going to go out there with the first offense on Saturday morning and take the first rep with the first offense.”
Beamer, however, also repeatedly said that each position is a “clean slate,” and Doty’s prior experience — substantial action in three games with two starts, 43 of 71 passing for 405 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions — isn’t something he’ll put that much emphasis on.
“After that (first rep), it’s a wide open competition. So (quarterbacks coach Marcus) Satterfield and I spent a lot of time talking about reps and how we’re rotating guys, and we’re going to practice at a pace on Saturday that we’re going to get a lot of reps done in practice, from start to finish,” Beamer said. “Those guys will have plenty of opportunities to show what they can do, not just at the quarterback position but at every single position that we have on the team.”
However the QB competition goes, Beamer didn’t commit to naming a starter anytime soon. In an ideal word, he said, he’d like to have someone in place by the end of spring practices “to empower him with that leadership ability” with his teammates. But citing his past experiences as an assistant at Georgia and Oklahoma, he also indicated he would be willing to wait until deep into preseason practices this summer and fall before making a final decision.
COVID vaccine talk
With the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, South Carolina will continue to regularly test players and coaches throughout the spring for the novel coronavirus.
Moving forward though, COVID-19 vaccines are expected to become widely available in the next few months — South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control has estimated that Phase 2 of its vaccine rollout, when vaccines will be available to every resident over 16 who wants one, will begin May 3, a few weeks after the Garnet & Black spring game.
When that happens, Beamer said, the Gamecocks are “ready and willing” to get the shot, despite polls indicating high levels of distrust in the vaccine.
“I’m scared to death of needles and shots and all that, so if anybody has any apprehension, it’s probably me,” Beamer said when asked if there was any hesitancy among his players. “But no, (athletic trainer) Clint Haggard and our medical professionals have been great. They’re a lot smarter than I am, so Clint has done a great job of alleviating any concerns and answering questions. Because when he and I have talked about it individually, I’ve had questions. Which, if I have questions, I know our coaches and players do, so we’ve given him opportunities to speak to our entire team, we’ve given him opportunities to speak to our entire coaching staff.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 2:50 PM.
