South Carolina injury report: Latest going into Kentucky game

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer said on Saturday after the Gamecocks win over Vanderbilt that running back Juju McDowell will miss the rest of the season with a broken collarbone.

On his Sunday teleconference, Beamer added that there were no big additional injuries in the 47-6 victory.

“Injury-wise, coming out of it, nothing real new other than Juju that we talked about yesterday, everybody else came out of the game in decent shape,” Beamer said. “The guys that didn’t play yesterday, I would say they’re all questionable right now. Will have a better idea Tuesday when I see you guys.”

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Tight end Trey Knox, running back Dakereon Joyner, guard Trai Jones, and tackle Cason Henry all missed the Vanderbilt game and could fall into that “questionable” category Beamer referred to, though the head coach didn’t seem optimistic on Saturday that Joyner would be available this upcoming week.

The outlook may be more positive for Knox, who missed last week with a hamstring injury, and was thought to be back this weekend but with the rainy weather conditions and the Gamecocks in control of the game, Carolina held him out as more of a precaution.

“He was available. He practiced on Thursday, Trey did,” Beamer said Saturday. “When we met as a staff this morning at the hotel at 7, what we said was, well, we’d love to not have to use him. Let’s see how the game is going. Let’s see how Trey feels in pregame warm-ups. And if we did use him today, it was going to be more of just maybe situational football, third down, red zone, things like that as well. But we didn’t need him. We used JonDarius Morgan, one of our offensive linemen, we used him as kind of an extra tight end for blocking today. And didn’t have to. So, Trey, credit him for working hard this week to get in position to play if we needed him today. But we just didn’t feel great about putting him in there.”

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Beamer did not rule out Jones or Henry returning against Kentucky.

Jones has missed the last two games as well as part of the Texas A&M game with a high-ankle sprain. Henry exited the Jacksonville State game with a lower body injury in what was the first game he had played in since Week 1 when he went down with a more serious injury to the same area. Joyner’s injury is to his ankle.

Beamer added that Kajuan Banks has been dealing with a little bit of a dinged-up shoulder but was still able to play on special teams.

South Carolina faces Kentucky this upcoming Saturday with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff at Williams-Brice Stadium.

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