MarShawn Lloyd, Christian Beal-Smith ruled out for Saturday
South Carolina football will once again be without its top two running backs in MarShawn Lloyd and Christian Beal-Smith when the Gamecocks host No. 5 Tennessee this Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium, head coach Shane Beamer said Thursday on his weekly call-in show on 107.5 The Game.
“Really, the only issues we’ve had are the two injuries we had (going into) last week and that’s MarShawn Lloyd and Christian Beal-Smith. They will not play Saturday against Tennessee,” Beamer said. “We’ll see where they are next week, but right now they don’t feel like they are capable of performing to their abilities on Saturday, so we won’t have those guys. But we’ve dealt with injuries before and we will continue with the next guy up. The next guy’s got to step up and be even better.”
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Lloyd, the Gamecocks’ lead back and top offensive threat, has missed the last two games after suffering a significant thigh bruise against Missouri. Beal-Smith has been in and out of the lineup all season long after dealing with a preseason football injury and missed the game at Florida.
Prior to the injury, Lloyd had emerged as South Carolina’s leading rusher and arguably most valuable player, rushing for 556 yards and nine touchdowns on 100 carries.
Other than the tough news on the two running backs, the rest of the injury news is pretty positive for the Gamecocks, who exited the Florida game in a relatively good place on that front.
“We came out of it pretty good,” Beamer said. “Knock on wood, unless somebody gets sick in the next 24 or 48 hours, we haven’t had to deal with the flu like we did last week. We had nine players that played in the Florida game that missed at least one day of practice last week with the flu. They overcame it — Vershon Lee didn’t, he missed the game — but for the most part, they overcame it, but you guys know, it affects your conditioning and whatnot as well and it’s not an excuse, but if affected our preparation last week. We haven’t had to deal with that.”
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Two of South Carolina’s defensive backs – Darius Rush and Devonni Reed – were banged up in the Florida game but both guys are fine and expected to play Saturday.
Saturday’s matchup is set for a 7 p.m. kickoff in a sold-out Williams-Brice Stadium on ESPN.
