South Carolina football will be without several key players for the foreseeable future, head coach Shane Beamer revealed Tuesday.
One of the most notable losses is true freshman edge rusher Kobby Sakyi-Prah, a three-star recruit from Roswell, Georgia, who joined the Gamecocks over the summer. Beamer confirmed that Sakyi-Prah is sidelined with a “lower-body injury that will be somewhat long term. I wouldn’t expect him back any time soon.”
Another young player facing a lengthy recovery is redshirt freshman defensive back Jackson Burger, a former Catawba Ridge standout and walk-on who turned heads in the spring game with several tackles. “He was really doing some great things for us from a defensive back and special teams standpoint, going back to the spring,” Beamer said. “The rate he improved from last year to now is really impressive. He’ll be out for a while.”
Beamer also addressed the status of veteran running back Rahsul Faison, who is still awaiting an NCAA ruling on whether he’ll be granted a seventh year of eligibility. Faison suffered a shoulder bruise in Saturday night’s scrimmage and missed Sunday’s practice but returned to action on Tuesday.
As for other injury updates, Beamer said defensive back Jalon Kilgore and edge Desmond Umeozulu are both expected to be fine. “Des will be fine — got banged up in the scrimmage the other night,” he said. “Jalon has a little bit of a soft-tissue injury on the lower body. But if we played today, they would play.”
The Gamecocks will now look to adjust their depth chart as they prepare for the upcoming season without two promising young defenders.
