Shane Beamer on Luke Doty's preparation as South Carolina's new QB1

South Carolina quarterback Luke Doty will be making his first start of the season on Saturday against Kentucky. Doty injured his foot in August and missed the beginning of the season with the injury. Grad assistant turned quarterback Zeb Noland started South Carolina’s first three games as Doty worked his way back.

Noland got the start against Georgia in Week 3 but left the game early on with an injury. This allowed Doty to get into the game and get the most action he has seen so far on the year. Doty ultimately completed 13 of his 26 passes for 153 yards, one touchdown and an interception. South Carolina ultimately fell 40-13 in the game, but Doty played relatively well considering he didn’t really get much of a chance to prepare against one of the nation’s top defensive teams.

Shane Beamer was happy with how Doty played against Georgia

There was undoubtedly rust, but Doty’s return sparked further hope for a South Carolina team that has started 2-1 on the season. Last season, Doty completed 43 of his 71 passes for 405 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. When Doty was forced into action, there wasn’t time to ease him into action.

“A lot of it, especially in practice, is getting him as much work as we can,” South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer said of Doty. “Individual drills, team settings, whatever it may be. He does a great job of just getting mental reps when he’s not in there. Even though he wasn’t 100% healthy, he was in all of the quarterback meetings and he’s in there taking notes and preparing to play. That certainly helped him mentally. We were trying to win the football game Saturday night and took the field expecting to win the football game. When Zeb got hurt and Luke had to come in, it wasn’t like we said, ‘Let’s do this to kind of get him going.’ We’re in a dogfight and we’re trying to win the game and go execute.

“I don’t know if many quarterbacks could have done what Luke did coming in like he did without having a lot of experience or practice. Certainly, you try to get him some easy throws and stuff like that but against Georgia I don’t know if there’s many easy throws you can get your quarterback. And he’s got to be better. He’d be the first to tell you he was rusty and missed some throws. But I thought the toughness and decision making that he had was really, really good.”

Doty and South Carolina will face Kentucky, Troy, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt over the next four weeks. The Gamecocks then have a brutal stretch to end the season. South Carolina faces four currently ranked teams in the final five weeks of the season; Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, and Clemson.