To start the season, it appeared South Carolina had the next name in the growing line of great wide receivers to pass through Columbia. Deebo Samuel was poised to stack up next to the likes of Pharoh Cooper, Alshon Jeffery and Sidney Rice.

A broken leg against Kentucky derailed those plans and perhaps altered the arc of South Carolina’s season.

That’s largely the bad news. The silver lining is South Carolina has other options to consider. It’s now on to Plan B as one of the deeper units on the team looks for someone to fill a rather sizable hole for receiving yards and kickoff returns.

Samuel has 250 of South Carolina’s 706 receiving yards and six of the team’s 11 touchdowns. He was on his way to contending for, if not winning, the SEC Offensive Player of the Year award. Heisman buzz was building. No single player will replace that production.

Coach Will Muschamp didn’t want to put a timetable on a possible return. So it is still unclear if Samuel will return in November, or at all this season.

Before its bye week on Oct. 21, South Carolina will face Louisiana Tech and Arkansas at home, and road games at Texas A&M and Tennessee.

“Unfortunately we have to move on. Man down, man up,” Muschamp said, according to The State. “We are not going to have excuses in this organization. We have some young men who are capable of stepping up, and we expect them to.

“I think we have some capable guys. Shi Smith is a freshman that does some nice things. OrTre (Smith) made a great catch there in the end zone. Bryan Edwards has been a very dependable guy. Our tight end group is somewhat of a wideout group. … Next man up. That’s got to be our mentality.”

Outside of Samuel, nine players have caught a pass this season, and seven have played in every game. Five have caught more than one pass, including running backs Rico Dowdle and Ty’Son Williams.

The obvious places to look to make up the slack are Bryan Edwards, who has 15 catches, the same number as Samuel, and tight end Hayden Hurst, who is third on the team with eight receptions. Hurst last season had 42 catches for 530 yards, which was second among tight ends in the SEC. Hurst is an All-SEC caliber player who could stand to receive more attention in the passing game.

Shi Smith was one of the more pleasant surprises of the preseason, and he already delivered early with multiple third-down conversions against N.C. State.

He was a coveted get in the 2017 signing class, and could be an option in creative play calls simply to get the ball in his hands. But a more ballyhooed prospect was receiver OrTre Smith, who was the top recruit in the Palmetto State, and who had a 9-yard touchdown catch on fourth down against Kentucky.

OrTre Smith and Edwards are both taller than Samuel and are also at least 200 pounds, which offers a big target for quarterback Jake Bentley.

For the Gamecocks to pick up the offensive momentum that started the season, they’ll need more catches like OrTre Smith made in the end zone.

“He did an excellent job getting across the field and made a great catch. (It’s) a huge play for him,” Bentley said, according to 247Sports.com, of OrTre Smith. “He’s been working hard in practice, so he’s definitely going to be one of the guys that’s going to have a step up now.”

Add in receivers like Randrecous Davis, A.J. Turner and Chad Terrell, who have one reception each, and it appears the most realistic expectation is several players contribute chunks of yards and touchdowns to make up for the large contributions Samuel made.