South Carolina football injury and roster update from Shane Beamer

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer met with the media Tuesday afternoon following the Gamecocks’ return to the practice fields for spring practice No. 1 and offered the latest on the roster and the injury front.

Notably absent from the new official roster that South Carolina released on Tuesday morning were wide receiver Jalen Brooks and offensive lineman Mark Fox.

“They are not currently a part of the program,” Beamer said. “With Mark, it was an injury situation with him that kind of caught up with him. And then, I spoke with Jalen last week and have been in constant contact with him but right now he’s not a part of the program at this point.”

Brooks missed the final half of last season with what Beamer called a “personal matter” at the time.

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On the injury front, quarterback Luke Doty made his return to the practice fields after missing the final six games of last season due to foot surgery.

“He is limited but is probably farther along than we thought he might be at this point,” Beamer said. “He’s not full speed but he’s not completely limited if that makes sense. He’s not able to get out there right now and do a whole lot of 11 on 11 competitive things but he’s able to do quite a bit of individual and drills and things like that. I think he’s 20 weeks out from surgery and is right on pace and making great progress.”

It’s a similar situation for several other players who are returning from injuries but are still limited, including OL Dylan Wonnum, DL Rick Sandidge and LB Sherrod Greene.

On Wonnum: “He’s recovering okay,” Beamer said. “Obviously, he had the back issue last year and is recovering from that. He’ll be limited this spring, don’t think he’ll be able to do a ton of full-speed work, but he’s able to do some limited things as well.”

On Greene: “Different injuries but he’s a little bit farther along than Luke because he got hurt in that Georgia game before Luke did. Sherrod is right on track. He was limited in all of the competitive things that we did last month and has progressed nicely since then. He’s not full speed but he’s moving really, really fast towards being full speed.”

On Sandidge: “He’s limited but coming along. He’s close. Obviously, he got hurt in August last year and didn’t do anything all of last season. The rehab has been been a little slower than probably he would have liked. We talked a couple of weeks ago about ‘it’s time to take the next step and continue to get closer and closer to playing.’

“He’s hungry and I’m optimistic that he’s going to be back to full-speed soon. He’s not full-speed right now. But is on track and hopefully he’ll be able to do some full-speed things here in the spring time. He needs to before the spring is out, for sure. It’s time for him to take another step and he’s eager to do that.”

South Carolina nickelback David Spaulding missed practice Tuesday but it’s not expected to be a long-term issue.

“Spaulding is coming off an offseason surgery that he had right when we came back from the bowl game,” Beamer said. “Nothing that will limit him when we get into the season but it’s just something that we needed to go in and clean up kind of in his pec area. He fought through some stuff throughout the season and just wanted to get that fixed where it wasn’t an issue for him going forward. … He’ll be full speed certainly by the season and hopefully before then.”

South Carolina football returns to the practice fields on Thursday morning.

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