Luke Doty’s injury rehab progress has Gamecocks optimistic for spring practice return
Luke Doty is healing up from last year’s season-ending foot injury.
South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer is optimistic Doty could be close to a full recovery by the time South Carolina begins spring practice March 15. He gave an update on the junior Wednesday after meeting with USC football athletic trainer Clint Haggard.
“Luke’s working really hard and is on a great track to be healthy,” Beamer told reporters. “We’re hopeful that he’ll be able to do basically everything in spring practice — hopefully. We’re still a little over a month away, but he’s on track, a lot farther along than maybe we anticipated him being at this point.”
Doty, who was South Carolina’s presumed starter heading into the 2021 season, battled with the foot injury throughout the early half of the season before he underwent season-ending surgery after the Vanderbilt game Oct. 16.
Doty first suffered the injury late in fall camp, which prompted Beamer to pull graduate transfer Zeb Noland off the sideline and onto the field to start in the Gamecocks’ first three games at quarterback. Doty missed the first two games of the 2021 season.
He came in for an injured Noland against Georgia and started the Gamecocks’ next four games before leaving the Vanderbilt contest in the fourth quarter. He reaggravated the injury and had surgery in the days after the game.
Since starting recovery, Doty has impressed Beamer with his progress.
“He looks great,” Beamer said. “I mean, when I see him walking around the building, I forget that he’s rehabbing an injury still because he is moving around so well down there.”
Doty finished the 2021 season completing 60.1% of his passes across five games for 975 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. He saw playing time in seven games as a freshman in 2020, completing 60.6% of his passes for 405 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions.
The starting role isn’t as clear-cut for Doty as it was heading into 2021, as Beamer added highly touted Oklahoma transfer Spencer Rattler to the Gamecocks’ roster in December.
Rattler, a former five-star recruit who came into the 2021 season at Oklahoma with preseason Heisman hype, lost the starting job in Norman to true freshman Caleb Williams amid an early slump. Once Rattler announced his transfer to USC, he joined the Gamecocks’ roster with plenty of fanfare. Rattler arrived on campus last weekend after training in his home state of Arizona.
Rattler’s addition prompted quarterback Jason Brown, who started in the Gamecocks’ last four games of the regular season, to transfer to Virginia Tech. Noland exhausted his final year of eligibility in 2021.
With the addition of class of 2022 three-star recruit Braden Davis, USC’s quarterback room will include Doty, Rattler, Davis, Colten Gauthier and Jake Helfrich.
Fans will get their first glimpse of Rattler, potentially Doty and the rest of the Gamecocks’ quarterback room in the annual spring game, scheduled for April 16 at Williams-Brice Stadium. Tanner Bailey, the team’s other 2022 signee, won’t enroll until the summer.
Beamer not speaking on ‘fluid’ personnel situations
Following South Carolina wide receiver Randrecous Davis’ announcement Monday that he’d be retiring from football, Beamer was asked if any other players from the 2021 roster were planning on stepping away from the program.
Beamer declined to speak on those personnel situations, but acknowledged there were other players weighing their options.
“We’ve got a couple other situations that are fluid,” Beamer said. “I don’t want to speak for them until I just make sure that they’re OK with me talking about it in this environment. A couple guys are trying to make some decisions. (It’s) nothing that I really want to get into right now.
“Just out of respect for those guys, I don’t want to come in here and say anything about anybody else that is stepping away from football without talking to them before I announce it.”
