About seven months ago, Josh Belk left the South Carolina football program after he appeared in 5 games with the Gamecocks following a transfer from Clemson. Now Belk has explained in a YouTube video why he left South Carolina.

Belk said a CT scan and MRI revealed he had a back fracture in three places, and the pain left him unable to even sit in class.

“I was never the type of person to just open up and express how I was feeling,” Belk said in the video. “I didn’t want to be looked at as being soft because I always wanted to produce, I wanted to play.”

Belk said three days after he learned his back was fractured, he received a text that said he needed to come in and work out.

“I was like, “Work out, and my back is fractured? What’s the deal with that,” he said. “That’s the point in time I started standing up for myself, instead of living in the now, I started living in the now and looking ahead.”

That was the beginning of the end for Belk with the South Carolina program. He then referred to a meeting with the “head coach” and didn’t refer to Will Muschamp by name.

“You’re going to have to lift and stuff, or we’re going to take your scholarship at the end of the semester. I was like, what kind of stuff is that man, I’m injured,” he said. “You want me to lift and you threaten to take my scholarship because of that. I got to the point where it ain’t no point in me staying here if my scholarship is going to get taken away, so at that point I just came home. … It was kind of dirt on that end, because when you’re on scholarship I feel like you should have the option to stay. At that point, they just wanted (me) for football, but it’s a business and I understand that.”

The former 5-star recruit and 2018 U.S. Army All-American arrived in Columbia after he initially signed with Clemson and enrolled early. Belk went through spring practices with the Tigers before he left the program for South Carolina. The Gamecocks appealed for a waiver for Belk, which was eventually granted by the NCAA, and cleared the true freshman to appear in 5 regular season games in 2018.