South Carolina All-American Jadeveon Clowney has returned to practice after missing the past two sessions with a bruised shoulder.
Clowney sat out Saturday's scrimmage and Monday night's practice before returning to the field on Tuesday. South Carolina did not practice Sunday. Gamecocks defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward had said that Clowney's injury was not serious.
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier may have sped up Clowney's return to the field, saying that if the defensive end's shoulder didn't show improvement soon, the Gamecocks might have to go without him in the opener against North Carolina on Aug. 29.
“I thought we had a decent practice this morning,” said head coach Steve Spurrier following the workout. “I thought Josh Kendall (of the State newspaper) wrote a very interesting article today. We have next to the bottom of the SEC in all-conference players. We’ve got four guys – one first-teamer and three second-team All-SEC guys. Only Kentucky has fewer than us. So our expectations, hopefully with our players, need to be known that we are not a super-duper team by any means. We don’t have a bunch of superstars right now. Hopefully as the year plays out, a bunch of these guys will develop into maybe all-conference players. But we’re an unknown team. We’ve got one superstar and that’s it. Everybody knows who he is. But one superstar doesn’t win many championships as we all know. Hopefully a bunch of guys can come around. I think our guys have got the message that we’ve got a long way to go.”
Clowney had 13 sacks last season and was named the Southeastern Conference's defensive player of the year. He finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy balloting behind winner quarterback Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M.
