South Carolina football: Mark Fox and Jordan Rhodes opt out of 2020 season

Two members of the South Carolina football team has decided to sit out their 2020 campaigns.

The Gamecocks have learned that they will be without two offensive linemen next season, as redshirt freshman Mark Fox and redshirt junior Jordan Rhodes have opted to sit out the 2020 campaign due to Coronavirus concerns.

The move certainly will hurt the South Carolina offensive line unit, as it loses depth and experience just a month and a half before the year is set to begin. South Carolina is not the first school to go through this, as others around the country have seen players make the decision to skip the condensed season. Notable names include projected first-round picks Micah Parsons of Penn State and Caleb Farley of Virginia Tech. The only SEC player to opt out, prior to this announcement, was Vanderbilt kicker Oren Milstein.

Fox’s departure for 2020 won’t hurt the Gamecocks too much from a starting lineup standpoint, but he was a player expected to provide quality depth in his second season in Columbia. He did not appear in a game last season.

Rhodes, however, was a starter in 2019. The incumbent at left guard appeared in all 12 games, cracking the starting lineup in 10 of those contests. The loss may cause the Gamecocks to shuffle some players around in order to find his replacement.

Head coach Will Muschamp has said that respects and understands the decisions, and that both players will remain on scholarship. He did, however, send the linemen home as classes at the university have not yet begun, and the football team will no longer have primary care for the two during the offseason.

This is a trend that is beginning to pick up following the announcements from each major conference to plan on playing football this fall. It will be a topic to follow as the offseason progresses.