Sunday injury report: South Carolina freshman out for season
South Carolina head football coach Shane Beamer announced Sunday evening during his usual Sunday injury report that freshman OL Markee Anderson will have surgery and miss the entire season with a knee injury.
The Gamecocks had hoped the four-star freshman would be able to debut soon but ultimately decided it was in his best interest to shut him down for the year.
Beamer also gave the latest on several other players who have been dealing with injuries.
“Injury-wise, came out of it pretty good, nothing major from last night,” Beamer said. “Told you guys, no update on Juice (Wells). We’ll know more on Tuesday. Expect to get Ahmarean Brown back. Expect to get JT Geer back. Markee Anderson, he will be done for the season. Expect him to have surgery this week. Hate it for him. He’s a tough kid. Could really help us on the offensive line right now. He’s going to be a big-time player here at South Carolina. We felt like the best thing for now would be just to shut him down and have surgery and get ready for spring practice.”
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Anderson, a top recruit from in-state Dorman, was expected to make an impact for the Gamecocks this season, but has been dealing with a nagging knee injury that did not respond to treatment the way he or the staff had hoped it would.
“It’s his knee, nothing like long-term ACL or anything like that,” Beamer said. “It’s just – it’s been something that’s been nagging him all along since August. He’s really been trying to play through it. The kid’s tough as heck. He’s been trying to fight through it because he wants to be out there so bad. And it’s just one of those things where he doesn’t feel like he can be at 100 percent. And we’ve, at this point, have tried really every different type of treatment and brace and rehab and things like that. And it’s just not healing like it needs to heal.”
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Beamer said Saturday after the game that Wells will see a specialist on Tuesday, though they don’t believe his injury will be season-ending.
The Gamecocks’ leading returning receiver had been returning from a summer foot injury that he had surgery on in the preseason.
Wells has played in all three games and appeared to be getting close to his old self when he scored the first touchdown of Saturday’s matchup with Georgia.
But he had to exit to the locker room right after that score and Beamer told CBS that they feared he had broken a bone in his foot.
The aforementioned Brown left the Furman game early with what Beamer called a hamstring injury and did not travel to Athens on Saturday.
EDGE JT Geer, a transfer from Syracuse, has yet to make his South Carolina debut due to a lower-body injury suffered in one of the Gamecocks’ preseason scrimmages.
Beamer added on Sunday that Cason Henry, who was injured on the fourth offensive play of the season, will still be out this week.
EDGE Tyreek Johnson got banged up late in practice this past week but is expected to get in some work on Sunday night and Beamer is hopeful that he can return this week.
South Carolina takes on Mississippi State this Saturday with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff at Williams-Brice Stadium.
