Noland progressing; No starting QB announced yet
South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer will wait to announce a starting quarterback for this Saturday night's matchup with Florida at Williams-Brice Stadium. When exactly that will come, is still unknown.
Beamer, speaking Tuesday afternoon during his weekly press conference, declined to announce whether Zeb Noland or Jason Brown would be the Gamecocks' starter versus the Gators as he and the team wait to learn more on the progress of Noland's injured knee.
Beamer did offer that Noland will need to be able to move around more in practice Wednesday than he did on Tuesday if he's going to be able to start on Saturday.
"He and Jason both and Colten (Gauthier) and Connor (Jordan), all the quarterbacks, they need to practice well and compete and show that they're the best person for the job on Saturday night," Beamer said.
Before this past week's bye, Noland started against Texas A&M and completed 7 of 12 passes for 30 yards before exiting the game with Brown in his place.
Brown completed 8 of 14 passes for 84 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions as he led the team on two late touchdown drives in the 44-14 rout.
Noland is rehabbing a meniscus injury that was surgically repaired last week. He practiced Tuesday, though it was in a limited capacity.
"From just a health standpoint with Zeb, I think the biggest thing is just the mobility," Beamer said. "I mean, he can sit in the pocket and throw. He did that today, but there's a difference between that and then being able if you get flushed out the pocket, or you've got to scramble or you've got to run, how effective he would be doing that with his knee.
"He got the surgery last weekend. He stayed around here all weekend to rehab and get better, so he's really far along with the rehab. On Sunday night when we came back to practice, we were really pleased with where he was after the weekend of rehab and was better today than what he was yesterday and he's just got to continue to progress during the week.
"For us, to me, he needs to be able to do more in practice tomorrow than what he did today. Today was good but just keep taking steps throughout the week of practice."
The Gamecocks and Gators are set to square off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium on SEC Network.
----
• Not a subscriber? Learn more about Gamecock Central here!
• Watch our live show and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• Sign up for Gamecock Central's FREE news alerts and daily newsletter.
• Subscribe to our podcast on whatever podcast platform you prefer!
• Follow us on Twitter: @GamecockCentral, @GCChrisClark, @WesMitchellGC, @CollynTaylor and @Mike_Uva.
• Follow Gamecock Central on Instagram @GamecockCentral.