Shane Beamer reveals offensive lineman Ni Mansell suffered season-ending injury
South Carolina coach Shane Beamer revealed unfortunate news on Tuesday, highlighting a new season-ending injury on the offensive line, where the Gamecocks are already quite banged up.
Redshirt junior Ni Mansell suffered a season-ending injury in practice on Sunday.
“Ni Mansell, who’s a young offensive lineman for us that transferred from Mercer, he suffered a season-ending injury in practice on Sunday night, so he had surgery yesterday,” Beamer said. “That’s an update, he’ll be done for the year.”
Mansell joined the program in the summer as a preferred walk-on and was expected to help round out the bottom edge of the depth chart. Instead, he’ll have to wait another year now to make any meaningful contributions.
The season-ending injury leaves South Carolina even shorter on bodies up front, something that is quickly becoming an issue for the team in practice.
“That’s tough, because that now means that’s seven offensive linemen that aren’t practicing for us right now when you talk about Cason Henry. Jakai Moore‘s practicing, he’s just got a banged-up shoulder, he’ll be fine for Saturday, but he didn’t practice today,” Beamer said. “Chase Sweigart is not practicing right now. Markee Anderson we’ve already talked about. Ryan Brubaker is out for the year. Then Jaylen Nichols is still out long-term as well.
“So when you’re missing seven offensive lineman that drastically affects the way you’re able to practice — the backups, the scout teams, all that stuff as well. Tough situation. Hate that for Ni. Hope he can get better soon, and he will be back next year better than ever.”
South Carolina pleased with running back room
While the offensive line is dinged up and the latest season-ending injury won’t help, South Carolina has still gotten quality play from its running back group.
Even behind a depleted line the unit has had some success, with four players getting touches so far this season.
Senior Mario Anderson is leading the way, with Dakereon Joyner right behind him.
“He’s gotta continue to get better, Mario’s gotta continue to get better,” Beamer said. “But we just gave Mario a game ball in there for the way he ran the football, so we’re proud of him like all of our running backs as well. We feel like we got four really good ones in Mario, DK, Juju [McDowell], and DJ [Braswell], and all those guys gotta keep coming along but certainly Mario showed what he can do tonight.”
Anderson ran 26 times for 88 yards and a touchdown in a 37-30 win over Mississippi State this weekend.