The South Carolina football team will have several key players returning from injury ahead of week two against East Carolina.
Head football coach Shane Beamer said during a press conference on Tuesday that his goals for the game were to "stop the run, and run the football."
Conveniently, star junior running back Kevin Harris will return to action Saturday.
“He’ll play. He looked good out there today,” Beamer said. "There’s not an issue on how many plays he could play."
Beamer said Harris' return doesn't mean the role of other running backs would instantly decrease.
“It’s not like all of a sudden Kevin Harris is back, and those guys are just kicked to the curb,” Beamer said.
With sophomore quarterback Luke Doty returning from injury, Beamer gave insight into what he and his coaching staff are doing to evaluate their starter.
“We certainly look at what you’ve done in games, what you’ve done in practice, what you've done previously, but at the end of the day it’s what gives us the best chance to win this Saturday," Beamer said.
Doty spoke during the press conference and said he wants to be able to feel confident in "being able to run at 100 percent." He also said he thinks highly of graduate transfer Zeb Noland, who is his counterpart.
“Personally I look up to him, he’s an awesome guy," Doty said. "He’s been around for a long time and he’s played a lot of football. So he’s an awesome guy to talk to about not only ball but just about life in general.”
On the defensive side of the ball, Beamer touted the redshirt sophomore defensive back Cam Smith’s game against Eastern Illinois, saying, ”he really, really, really looked impressive Saturday night, I thought. I'm excited about his ability and what this season's gonna look like for him.”
Another standout in Saturday’s game against Eastern Illinois was sophomore edge rusher, Jordan Burch.
Burch scored on an interception late in the fourth quarter and pulled away from everybody on his way to the end zone.
Beamer said Burch looked like a “runaway train going down the field right there."
Burch is 6 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 268 pounds, and ran 20.45 miles per hour on the play.
The Gamecocks’ uniforms for Saturday are mostly set, Beamer said. “Right now it looks like we’re probably gonna be all white this week. So, we’re still working through some things, so I don’t know if that’s 100 percent yet, but I think that’s the way we’re trending.”