The Feed Pail: A.J. Lawson’s status, spring football, and more

Welcome back to the feed pail, where we take a look around the internet for some choice South Carolina Gamecocks tidbits and share them back here with you. It might be baseball season, but there’s some football news to catch up on.

Freshman guard A.J. Lawson has ‘severe’ ankle sprain

The Gamecocks’ freshman phenom rolled his ankle going for a fast-break basket against Alabama on Tuesday, and unfortunately, the prognosis isn’t great. He was expected to sit out Saturday’s game against Missouri, but with what the program is calling a “severe” sprain, he’ll miss at least two games — and it could be more, since sprains have notoriously fickle healing times. Lawson will be re-evaluated on Monday, so fingers crossed some rest over the weekend does him good.

South Carolina beings spring football rebuilding shattered secondary — The Post and Courier

Spring football is back, and with it comes all the drama of trying to read the tea leaves and see what the fall has in store. This piece from The P&C takes a look at South Carolina’s defensive backfield, which is in need of some new faces to step up after the departures of starters Rashad Fenton, Steven Montac, and Keisean Nixon. The future is bright with young talent like Jaycee Horn and Israel Mukuamu, but to say the Gamecocks need some depth would be, uh, an understatement.

Jake Bentley is the starter. This is the plan for South Carolina’s backup QB job — The State

What would spring football be without some intrigue at quarterback? We all know that Jake Bentley, a rising senior, is entrenched as the Gamecocks’ starter, but QB2 is wide open. Redshirt freshmen Dakereon Joyner and Jay Urich are in the mix, as is the highly-lauded early enrollee Ryan Hilinski. Joyner and Urich saw just a handful of mop-up snaps last year, while Hilinksi enters the fray with an impressive recruiting pedigree. This should be fun for fans to speculate (and argue) about.

Zach Bailey’s not bitter, but not sure where he’ll be drafted after Akron injury — The State

In case spring football wasn’t enough for you, the NFL Combine is getting cranked up this weekend, too. Bailey, who anchored the Gamecocks’ offensive line throughout his career and was unfortunate enough to break a leg in the regular-season finale, is in Indianapolis to audition. While he’ll wait to perform some of the drills at South Carolina’s Pro Day later this month, it’s good to see him back in action, and it sounds like he has a great attitude.