South Carolina Football: Update on suspended freshmen
By Kevin Miller
The South Carolina football program lost three freshmen to suspension in February as redshirt freshman Anthony Rose and true freshmen Monteque Rhames and Cameron Upshaw were arrested on various charges surrounding the presence of a gun on campus. In addition to the legal issue at hand, the three players’ academic statuses remain unresolved as the University of South Carolina has not announced the end of their University suspensions. Because of this, Shane Beamer has not been able to provide any real updates on the situation.
The closest thing to an update from the South Carolina football program or University came on Tuesday when Beamer spoke to the media. In that media availability, Coach Beamer shared that there was a “certain length” of time the players had to be suspended but did not go into any further detail about that length of time or the suspension except to say that it is “above [his] head” from a University standpoint and a legal standpoint.
However, there have been some other updates.
Anthony Rose
The oldest of the three players is Anthony Rose. Rose was a 4-star defensive back in the 2022 recruiting class who missed his first season on campus dealing with an academic issue. Several weeks ago, Rose gave up on his pursuit to be reinstated by the University of South Carolina and the Gamecock football program and entered his name into the transfer portal. He has, expectedly, not been picked up by another program.
Monteque Rhames
Monteque Rhames was a 4-star defensive end prospect from the 2023 recruiting cycle. Rhames is a Sumter native who faced some off-field issues in high school, as well. According to a report from SportsTalk’s Phil Kornblut, Rhames could enroll in a junior college soon as the legal and academic situations are not close to their resolutions. In Kornblut’s report, September was named as the earliest resolution point for the suspended players.
Cameron Upshaw
Cameron Upshaw was a three-star defensive back recruit from the 2023 class. He was a minor when the on-campus incident occurred, though he was 17 years old, enough to be tried as an adult in the state of South Carolina for certain crimes. Because of this, it is unclear how his legal troubles may be handled in relation to those of Rose and Rhames. However, there has been no update on Upshaw specifically.