South Carolina coming away 'pretty healthy' but loses one key player to injury

South Carolina came into Saturday as healthy as it’s been all season. Aside from Cason Henry, who will likely be out the rest of the season, the Gamecocks had no other players on the SEC availability report.

“It helped having those guys back, because we were healthier than we have been on offense and defense,” head coach Shane Beamer said. “So that was huge, just from a depth standpoint, to be able to rotate some people in there.”

But despite having almost everyone back, it wasn’t enough to pull off the upset at Williams-Brice Stadium. South Carolina, which led 15-14 going into the fourth quarter, suffered a crushing 29-22 loss to No. 4 Alabama.

After the game, Beamer provided a brief injury update, which there wasn’t really much to share since he believed the team came away “pretty healthy.”

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However, the Gamecocks did lose one player, one who’s been very impactful this season.

“We lost Moe Brown, which you guys know, what a weapon he is on special teams,” Beamer said. “We lost him to an upper-body injury, I think, on the first punt, when they punted. So he didn’t play the whole game, which is a big loss, because he’s such a weapon.”

Brown, who’s in his third year with the program as a tight end, has been a strong special teams player for South Carolina throughout his career. Not having him out there for most of Saturday’s game was tough, Beamer said.

“He’s a star on every special team that we have,” Beamer added. “And then we wanted to be able to get him going a little bit more today on offense, being able to get us 10-15 plays in there. So we lost some of that from a tight end standpoint, and then certainly, we lost our best special teams player.”

Beamer will have another injury update when he meets with the media for his weekly teleconference on Sunday at 5 p.m.

South Carolina will be on the road next week when it travels to take on No. 8 Ole Miss. A finalized kickoff time hasn’t been announced yet. But it will be at either 3:30, 7, or 7:30 p.m. on ESPN or ABC.

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